Heavyweight PR guru joins Lancashire County Council (From Lancashire Telegraph)

I had high hopes for the County Council when the Conservatives took over. Now after reading about who they have set on, and the reason why, I am not so sure.

At a time when money is scarce how ironic the Tories choose to parachute in a spin doctor from Westminster. I thought David Cameron offfered a new era but it appears all we get is more spin. No wonder people choose not to vote.

mr plod wrote:
At a time when money is scarce how ironic the Tories choose to parachute in a spin doctor from Westminster. I thought David Cameron offfered a new era but it appears all we get is more spin. No wonder people choose not to vote.

Very unfair comments, if LCC want the best there is then why look anywhere else than Westminster? Paul is the best there is and would be the first to admit the standards of PR he has encountered in this area, particularly amongst the district Councils leaves a lot to be desired. His role will be to improve the communications I frastrucyure at LCC so citizens get easy to read valuable information about services in the county and then focus on giving smaller councils such as Ribble Valley, Pendle, Chorley a benchmark to help them improve their own PR and marketing outputs. When Paul identifies improvements and efficiencies across county hall people will think this is 50k very well spent.

The standard of PR and communication from local government in general is well-meaning but often the wording is just awful.

A classic example is the leaflet that we get with the Council Tax Bill. This is a joint Lancashire County/Pendle Borough Council/Lancashire Fire Service affair that is A5 and opens out as a broad sheet.

It's bursting with local government and technical jargon. Some of the communication is excellent but very often the writers take 100 words to say what could be said more clearly and effectively in 50 words.

In short this is a document that is still written from the view-point of the provider and not the citizen. It focuses on what's important to the council, not what matters to the tax payer and I suspect can best be understood properly by councillors, local government accountants and performance monitoring officers. I would hazard a guess that the average citizen must find it a nightmare. I know I do, but that's probably because I'm a bit slow.

Whoever takes on the job of PR in local government will find that they have a mountain to climb.

Kevin, Colne wrote:
The standard of PR and communication from local government in general is well-meaning but often the wording is just awful.

A classic example is the leaflet that we get with the Council Tax Bill. This is a joint Lancashire County/Pendle Borough Council/Lancashire Fire Service affair that is A5 and opens out as a broad sheet.

It's bursting with local government and technical jargon. Some of the communication is excellent but very often the writers take 100 words to say what could be said more clearly and effectively in 50 words.

In short this is a document that is still written from the view-point of the provider and not the citizen. It focuses on what's important to the council, not what matters to the tax payer and I suspect can best be understood properly by councillors, local government accountants and performance monitoring officers. I would hazard a guess that the average citizen must find it a nightmare. I know I do, but that's probably because I'm a bit slow.

Whoever takes on the job of PR in local government will find that they have a mountain to climb.

A good point you make, Paul masterman is strong on tackling jargon but he will have his work cut out. I live in Burnley and some of the language they use in their newspaper needs a dictionary to explain. Paul masterman will certainly have his work cut out sorting this out but in the long run it is the residents of Lancashire who will benefit as they get better, more concise information. I suspect part of the LET's venom is through a fear of how he may compete with them on the advertising front with the council newspaper. Some civic papers in London offer much better value for money for taxpayers through advertising so if he brings some of that know how to Lancashire you can begin to understand why the local newspaper is trying to discredit him.

Crikey, seems to me LCC would have been well advised to hire 'Ian the King' - he puts a real credible spin on what is undoubtedly a controversial appointment... I wish I had such a personal fab club! Isn't it more the case that the district councils are and have for some time been leaving the County behind on standards and benchmarking - value for money and accountability generally? There's certainly less trumpet blowing and more focus on providing information on services from them. Interestingly, the three he mentions specifically are all considered extremely good in this field by peers and their own residents more to the point. Maybe Paul Masterman will help LCC to make up the gap in standards between them and the better districts? They could certainly do with any help they can get!

Ian the king wrote:

Kevin, Colne wrote:
The standard of PR and communication from local government in general is well-meaning but often the wording is just awful.

A classic example is the leaflet that we get with the Council Tax Bill. This is a joint Lancashire County/Pendle Borough Council/Lancashire Fire Service affair that is A5 and opens out as a broad sheet.

It's bursting with local government and technical jargon. Some of the communication is excellent but very often the writers take 100 words to say what could be said more clearly and effectively in 50 words.

In short this is a document that is still written from the view-point of the provider and not the citizen. It focuses on what's important to the council, not what matters to the tax payer and I suspect can best be understood properly by councillors, local government accountants and performance monitoring officers. I would hazard a guess that the average citizen must find it a nightmare. I know I do, but that's probably because I'm a bit slow.

Whoever takes on the job of PR in local government will find that they have a mountain to climb.

A good point you make, Paul masterman is strong on tackling jargon but he will have his work cut out. I live in Burnley and some of the language they use in their newspaper needs a dictionary to explain. Paul masterman will certainly have his work cut out sorting this out but in the long run it is the residents of Lancashire who will benefit as they get better, more concise information. I suspect part of the LET's venom is through a fear of how he may compete with them on the advertising front with the council newspaper. Some civic papers in London offer much better value for money for taxpayers through advertising so if he brings some of that know how to Lancashire you can begin to understand why the local newspaper is trying to discredit him.

The Council Tax leaflet in question follows a pretty standard format across different boroughs. The Bury MBC leaflet is almost identical to the Blackburn with Darwen leaflet. I assume there must be some input from central Government here.

Yes, the language used is gobbledegook but this is how the public sector, consultants and lawyers justify their costs!

Councils need to publish their income and expenditure for the layperson, so that council tax payers know exactly where the pounds in their pockets are going. We don't need technical accountancy lingo that few of us understand.