Rod Cook, Derbyshire County Council
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Transcript Rod Cook, Derbyshire County Council
Public Relations and
Derbyshire County Council
Rod Cook FCIPR
Director of Communications
Derbyshire County Council
[email protected]
The Derbyshire View
Derbyshire County Council
Our PR Team
What the team says
Case Study - Fostering
Questions
Derbyshire County Council
750,000 residents
330,000 households
36,000 employees
64 councillors
Managed by a council cabinet of councillors and
team of chief officers
It’s big business
£1.1 billion budget
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Children
Adult social services
Roads
Public transport
Rubbish disposal
Libraries
£680m
£270m
£62m
£26m
£27m
£18m
Public relations budget of £2.5 million
It’s All About People
Support 419 schools.
Run 54 children’s centres and supports 145 day
nurseries.
Support 425 foster carers, runs nine children’s
homes and seven family support centres.
Help more than 35,000 vulnerable and older
people to live at home. Support over 3,500
people in residential care.
Assist 1,850 people to arrange their own
services through Direct Payments
It’s All About People
Maintain 3,285 miles of roads, 1,082 bridges,
3,216 miles of public rights of way and over
89,000 street lights.
Grit 1,500 miles of roads.
Run 45 branch libraries, 11 mobile libraries, 1
museum and a record office and local studies
library.
Manage 5 country parks and 13 nature reserves.
It’s All About People
Dispose of around 349,000 tonnes of rubbish a
year - 43.3% is recycled.
Provide 233 school crossing patrols.
Provide over 3,000 businesses with trading
standards advice and support each year.
Million page downloads and 150,000 unique
visitors to our website every month.
Respond to approximately 400 emergency
incidents each year.
Communications – Key Functions
Promote and publicise the council’s policies,
services and achievements internally as well as
externally
Advise council and chief officers on
communications
Manage crisis communications
Build a positive council reputation
Communications – Areas Of Activity
Media relations
Corporate publications
Corporate publicity campaigns
Online and social media
Crisis communications
Event management
Communications – Areas Of Activity
Improve life for local people
Use PR to deliver business objectives
Use PR to add value and deliver savings
Have ‘Big’ ideas – integrated multi channel
campaigns
Radical thinking
Ethical PR – We are the conscience of the
organisation
We solve communications problems
Have fun!
Award Winning Team 2012
Winners of 7 Campaign awards
Winners of 2 Silver Awards
Winners of 3 Highly Commended Awards
Six Best PR Team Awards
• PRCA Public Sector In-house Team of the
Year, 2011 and 2012
Finalists 21 times
Over 100 PR awards in last 10 years
Award Winning Team 2012
Team of 29 communications staff
Journalists, marketing and PR graduates
Web ‘techies’
Award Winning Team 2012
They are all:
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Excellent writers
Understand news
Understand people and audiences
Creative thinkers
Have good ‘people skills’
What do they like about working in In-house PR?
“I enjoy the variety and seeing the positive effects
on people’s everyday lives”
“Working with a dedicated team who want to get
things right”
“The people and the variety”
“I love using different writing styles. There’s
always something new to spread the word about”
“Having a new idea and being told to run with it”
“Every day is different and rewarding”
What’s most frustrating?
“Projects don’t sometimes progress as quickly as
I’d like”
“People who choose not to take PR advice
because it’s not what they want to hear”
“Trying to counter people’s negative attitudes
about public services”
“Vanity publishing”
“People who tell us how to do our job”
What’s advice would you give ?
“If you haven’t got a sense of humour, get one”
“Keep an open mind. Media is constantly evolving
and so should you”
“Think digital. It’s an essential tool”
“Get some PR experience to see if you like it, and
if you do, go for it!”
“Invest time in managing relationships as well as
projects”
“Work to continuously improve your writing”
Producing an Award Winning Campaign
Research
Set campaign objectives and desired outcomes
Agree strategy
Deliver campaign
Monitor and evaluate
Fostering Campaign
Fostering Campaign - Research
We were short of at least 80 additional carers
Spending £3.3 m a year on expensive foster
care from independent providers
Children were being placed be a long way away
from their home area
Less cash for preventative services which could
stop children entering the care system in the
first place.
Independent placements cost £33,000 a year
more than our own foster carers.
Fostering Campaign - Objectives
Provide local homes for local kids
Increase enquiries and expressions of interest
from prospective Derbyshire carers.
To make Derbyshire County Council the first and
most popular choice for prospective carers.
To improve the image and reputation of the
county council as a provider of care for children.
Fostering Campaign - Strategy
Modernise outdated and poorly targeted print
adverts
Place a new emphasis on fostering as a
professional career
Introduce a faster, friendlier and more efficient
way of handling enquiries
Develop a multi-media campaign to deliver key
messages
Carefully targeted television advertising was cost
effective and reach our key audiences
Fostering Campaign - Delivery
Print adverts – for use in local newspapers and
key council corporate publications
TV advertising – two 30 second commercials
based on simple fostering stories
Radio Advertising - we produced two 30 second
and one 10 second adverts.
Media relations - a series of news and feature
articles were issued to prolong the exposure of
the campaign.
Fostering Campaign - Delivery
Posters – our print adverts were shaped into
posters for display in libraries, GP surgeries,
children’s centres
Flyers – a series of flyers to promote the
different fostering options – teenagers, disabled
youngsters and family groups
Digital and social media – promotion on our
main website, jobs website and social media
Simplified phone applications with social
workers follow-up contact within five working
days.
Fostering Campaign – Evaluation
We increased the level of enquiries to our
contact centre from a few a week to an average
of 60 a month
As a direct result of the campaign we recruited
40 new foster carers – 40 new local homes for
local kids
Saved the council up to £1.32m on our private
fostering bill.
We needed to recruit just four new foster carers
to cover campaign costs of £110k
Public Relations and
Derbyshire County Council
Rod Cook FCIPR
Director of Communications
Derbyshire County Council
[email protected]