Corporate Communications Strategy 2018 2019 - Blaenau Gwent

Corporate Communications Strategy 2018 - 2019

The Corporate Communications StrateWelcome

Welcome
Communications is at the centre of everything that we do. Through successful
communication, we are able to deliver the services that are important to our
residents, and to develop good working relationships with many of our partners in
the public and voluntary sectors.

This strategy outlines how we manage our communications activities. It helps us to
ensure that communication and engagement between us and the people and
organisations we come into contact with – our stakeholders is always appropriate
and consistent. In this way, we hope that everyone is kept informed about the
Council’s priorities, policies, activities and events and that you know how to share
your views and opinions with us.

We understand that the ways in which we communicate are constantly changing and
we have built flexibility into our plans. Our strategy recognises the importance of
digital media without compromising our use of traditional communication methods.
There are some situations where a fast, immediate dialogue is most appropriate and
others where face to face and community engagement is important.

We know that we must continue to develop and improve our communications and
links with our local residents and I am delighted to support the Corporate
Communications strategy for 2018-19.

Councillor Nigel Daniels, Leader of the Council

1. Introduction
 The purpose of the Corporate Communications Strategy is to support the
 delivery of the Council’s corporate plan and to ensure effective
 communications with the people of Blaenau Gwent and relevant stakeholders.

 The strategy seeks to ensure that all communications are managed in a
 proactive and planned manner.

 Effective communication is not just a function of one department but is part of
 everyone’s responsibility across the Council. Our communications strategy is
 designed to support the vision, values and objectives set out in the Council’s
 Corporate Plan.

2. Corporate Plan

The Corporate Plan sets out what the people of Blaenau Gwent can expect from the
Council but equally, it will set out what we should expect from citizens and partners.

An ongoing process of gathering a wide-range of information to understand the issues
that are most important to people has taken place (via various programmes of public
engagement) and we have been looking at future trends to make sure we consider the
things that will affect how we work in the longer term.

The new priorities developed for the Corporate Plan will incorporate the existing Council
Wellbeing Objectives as required by the Council’s individual duty under the Well-being
of Future Generations Act 2015. Five strategic priorities for the Council have been
agreed, representing the most important areas to address in the short to medium term.

The Executive and Corporate Leadership Team will undertake a programme of internal
and external engagement to ensure staff, members and citizens are clear in terms of
their role and contribution to the successful delivery of the Council priorities as set out
in the new Corporate Plan.

The following chart shows the hierarchy and inter-relationship between the
Communications Strategy and Council plans.

3. Aims and Principles
The Council’s Corporate Communications Strategy aims to use proactive
communications to engage with our residents, increase satisfaction levels,
enhance our reputation and keep staff informed and motivated. It aims to build
trust in the Council through effective communication.

We will achieve this by providing open and honest communications to support
the key priorities of the Council included in the Council’s Corporate Plan. We
want to use proactive communication to increase public awareness and
understanding of our forward direction and will focus on delivery of the Council’s
priorities.

4. Communication Objectives

•   To support the Council achieve its vision and priorities through regular
    planned and proactive communications. This is targeted to build and
    maintain the reputation of the Council.

•   To support the Council in delivering key internal communications to ensure
    delivery of its priorities. This will include engaging with members of staff to
    ensure consistency of understanding around the priorities contained in the
    Corporate Plan as we recognise the value of a motivated workforce.

• To provide information and access to Council services across a wide range of
    communications channels, both off and online. This will include encouraging
    digital access to Council services where appropriate to be an efficient and
    modern organisation.

•   To promote the use of the Council website and social media accounts as key
    access channels for information on Council strategies, services and plans.
    The Council website is a key communications tool as it is the most efficient
    and cost effective way to communicate with residents.

•   To promote the use of the Welsh language where required.

•   To provide strategic marketing and communications advice, training and
    support for Members and Officers. This will include tailor made
    communications plans for key areas including Environment, Education and
    Regeneration.

5. Target Audiences

Our target audiences are many and varied and our approach must be targeted
and timely. We recognise a diversity of needs within each of these groups and a
‘one size fits all’ approach will not work. Residents cannot be simply classified as
one group, indeed there are many sub-groups – young people, families,
vulnerable adults, disabled, and older residents to name a few; each with very
different priorities.

This strategy is committed to catering for different needs and to direct our
resources as appropriate.

Our main target audiences are as follows:

•   Residents
•   Staff
•   Elected Members

•     Schools
•     Businesses and Investors
•     Media – on and off line, local, national and trade
•     MPs and AMs
•     Welsh Government and its agencies

6. Communications and Marketing Plans (External Communication)

    We will deliver an integrated strategic approach to all communications
    activities so it is planned, proactive and measurable.

    The Council’s brand, visual identity and communications channels will be joined
    up for maximum impact. This includes member communications, media
    relations, marketing campaigns and customer service communications.

    Marketing and Communications is an integrated corporate function. This forms
    the basis of external marketing and communications activity. In practice this
    means:

•     The Corporate Communications team delivers a core set of marketing and
      communications plans through its annual communications plan which
      provides the detailed activity. Examples include Waste and Recycling plans,
      local links to national campaigns like the City Deal, Regeneration and
      Customer (self-service) promotion.

•     All media relations activity is delivered through the Corporate
      Communications team. We value the media and see it as an important means
      of reaching all of our audiences. Media outlets also provide valuable
      opportunities to build a more positive profile for Blaenau Gwent. We will
      target the media through proactive communications.

      We will provide a comprehensive media desk service to provide press
      releases and handle media enquiries. We aim to build closer links with the
      local media and developing opportunities to work together by creating
      interesting media opportunities within key service areas. We are also
      committed to supporting and training Council spokespeople in working
      effectively with the media.

•     All marketing and communications activity is channelled through the
      Corporate Communications team. This includes procurement of marketing
      supplies and services where required.

This means that:

•     There is a co-ordinated, managed and consistent approach to all our
      marketing and communications activities.

•     The brand and reputation of the Council is actively managed.
•     We achieve efficiencies and use our expertise to ensure the best value for
      money.

In order to understand the impact and value of our activity we will monitor and
evaluate what we do. Individual marketing and communications plans will be
evaluated where possible. The same will apply to each marketing and
communication campaign and all campaigns will have clear objectives to allow
evaluation.

7. Communications Channels

      To maximise our resources and to ensure value for money we will clearly
      identify our target audiences and target them through the most appropriate
      communication channel or range of channels. We have a range of methods
      to reach our target audiences and examples of the main channels are below:

•     The Council website
•     Social Media
•     My Services self-service portal
•     National, regional and local media
•     Engagement events
•     Customer surveys
•     Advertising
•     Roadshows and displays

      Our website and social media channels are important. They are efficient and
      effective tools to signpost customer to direct services or to get information
      about services without the need to telephone us.

      However, we also want to help people who cannot access to digital
      communications to have alternatives or support to access digital. We have
      less resource to produce printed material and what we print is produced
      either on demand or as economically as possible.

8. Engagement

    The Corporate Communications strategy will support our engagement strategy
    and consultation with residents by promoting the events through all available
    communications channels. The results and feedback from any engagement
    work and customer surveys will be communicated through the same council
    communications channels.

9. Internal Communications and Staff Engagement

    We recognise the value of our staff and our aim is to develop a positive
    environment to retain, support and develop staff. We aim to deliver regular
    clear and consistent communication in different ways (face to face, digital and
    printed) to staff to provide the information for them to provide a high quality
    customer service. Feedback is important and regular staff surveys will be the
    main formal tool to gather this.

    The following channels are used:

•     Managing Director Message
•     Leadership roadshows and engagement events
•     Intranet
•     Team meetings and 1 to 1 meetings
•     Performance reviews
•     Staff surveys

We recognise that front line staff without digital access are the hardest group to
reach with regular communication and we will develop alternative ways of
reaching these groups and receiving appropriate feedback.

10. The Role of the Communications team

      The Corporate Communications team delivers a core set of marketing and
      communications plans through its annual communications plan. This ensures
      that the Council’s key messages and priorities are delivered to as wide an
      audience as possible using the different communications channels at its
      disposal. However, effective communication is not the responsibility of one
      department and good Council wide communication is important when
      delivering our strategies and services.

11. Communications in a crisis

      This is a new element included in the Communications Strategy for the first
      time. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a responsibility on organisations
      to have emergency plans and business continuity arrangements in place
      which includes a duty to communicate with the public prior to and in the
      event of and during the recovery from an emergency.

      Effective and speedy communications are essential in any emergency and the
      Council works closely with partners in Regional and Local Resilience
      Partnerships to plan and prepare for emergencies and major incidents.

•     We will work with partners, staff and schools to develop major incident
      emergency plans.

•     We will review communications in all our major incident and off site business
      continuity plans.

•     We will take part in learning, training and de-briefing sessions.

•     We will continue to develop our website and social media capabilities to
      effectively warn and inform in an emergency.

•     We will help to build resilience in the local community for businesses, schools
      and residents through the promotion of business continuity information.

•     When an emergency is declared, we will support the lead partner
      organisation (or lead) in delivering the communications plan during the event
      and in the recovery phase.

12. Measures and Evaluation

    Individual and service marketing communications plans will have objectives and
    success measures which will be evaluated at regular intervals.

    Corporate communication activity will be evaluated where possible. Not all
    communications activity can be evaluated as it forms part of a range of
    activities designed to deliver service improvement.

    There are measures available and high level measures include:

    Table 1 – Communications Measures and Evaluation

    Area                        Measure(s)                   Notes
    Media Relations.            • Accurate and
                                  balanced media
                                  coverage for the
                                  Council.
                                • 5 proactive press
                                  releases issued to the
                                  media per week.
    Internal                    • Staff feel they are        Results will come from
    Communications                well informed and          the staff surveys and
                                  understand Council         staff engagement
                                  priorities.                sessions.
    Council website             • Increasing the                 • This will be
                                  number of visitors to              evaluated by
                                  the Council website.               with a monthly

The average number              analysis of traffic
                            of visitors per month           to the website.
                            during 2017 is              •   A customer
                            24,900.                         satisfaction
                        • Increase the number               survey will be
                            of online transactions          used to
                            using the customer              understand how
                            portal. Self service            customers use
                            transactions account            our website and
                            for 21% of total                that it provides
                            service requests (at            easy access to
                            31 January 2018).               services and
                            The plan is to                  information.
                            increase this to 25%
                            of the total by March
                            2019.
                        • Residents are able to
                            find information on
                            key council services
                            easily.
Social Media            Increasing number of         This will be evaluated
• Continue to develop   Facebook Fans and            with a monthly analysis
   its use to           Twitter followers so that    of traffic to our social
   - Manage our         both Corporate accounts      media accounts. The
   reputation           exceed 10,000 by the         analysis will include
   - Communicate        end of March 2018.           measures of
   directly with the                                 engagement with posts
   public               The number of Facebook       issued.
   - Provide            fans at the end of
   information          February 2018 is 9,300
   - Promote Council
   services             The number of Twitter
   - Warn and inform    followers at the end of
                        February 2018 is 9,400.

Citizen’s Survey        Citizens feel                An annual
                        communication is clear       communications survey
                        and that they are well       will be sent out and
                        informed about Council       results used to produce
                        priorities and strategies.   future communications
                                                     strategies.