ITEM NO 9 Appendix 4 Members Room Document
Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council
A report and proposals for improving the promotion of Southampton City Council and resident engagement with the council
REPORT BY WESTMINSTER CITY COUNCIL May 2009
By Alex Aiken, Lindsay Coulson and Neil Wholey
DRAFT
Objective The objective of this review is to provide a robust plan to develop Southampton’s communications to effectively promote the city.
Methodology This report was compiled using a review of major papers, publications and plans, surveys and interviews with managers, members and residents, interviews with journalists and stakeholders, analysis of BVPI and Place survey data and comparison of performance against I&DeA and LGA criteria.
Conclusion The council’s overall communications performance is currently at the bronze standard of best practice. The corporate communications team could be substantially improved by working to a coherent story and clear communications plan, developing pro-active campaigns and by the better use of existing resources across the council.
DRAFT Table of contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4
1. CURRENT SITUATION 6
2. CURRENT OUTPUTS 10
3. CURRENT IMPACT AND ASSESSMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS ACTIVITY 14
4. DELIVERING THE STORY 31
5. PROPOSED APPROACH AND STRUCTURE 33
6. PROPOSED OUTPUT 37
7. RECOMMENDATIONS 38
8. APPENDICES 41
DRAFT Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Executive Summary
The council’s overall communications performance is currently weak and is operating at a level below that of council services. However, our findings show that the corporate communications team can be substantially improved by working to a clear communications plan, developing pro-active campaigns and by better use of existing resources across the council. It is also critical that the council develops a story for Southampton. To do so will take a different approach to that currently in operation with a restructured team.
The main conclusion of this review is that the overall communications of the council is operating at 40% of its possible effectiveness and meets the bronze standard, based on our assessment against the I&DeA criteria, the LGA reputation campaign, manager and member surveys, resident survey and discussions with staff. The key areas which need significantly improving are:
• Strategic communications and planning • Running of marketing campaigns • Pro-active local and national media relations • Crisis communications handling and pre-empting negative media coverage
Crucially, the council has shown it is prepared to take the steps required to create a professional communications service with the expertise to advise the council.
Effective communications depend on clear goals, a precise remit and the capacity and skill to deliver. At present there is a clear focus on being reactive to coverage in the Southern Daily Echo. This is important but only a small part of what a well performing communications team should be delivering. The team should be developed to not only ensure that coverage improves in the paper, but also that the council is well placed to react quickly and in an informed manner (a snapshot of coverage in the Echo over a four week period shows 53% is positive/neutral and 47% negative, Westminster City Council’s coverage is 89% positive/neutral, Harrow Council’s is 90% positive/neutral). This will involve senior managers and members advising the media team of activities, in order that communications can be planned, and not just looking for them to issue a press release once decisions are made. The team needs to target its releases better because at present more than 40% are not used. A more acceptable figure would be 10%.
This report provides the first hard evidence of the impact of the council’s magazine CityView and while it is liked by residents it could be improved. Local media has more impact and key value for money stories are not getting through to residents. CityView is the council’s most effective tool for getting its message across but our research shows the local newspaper is currently the top source of information for residents (61%) with City View second (57%). It is critical to the main existing channels right before we can then focus on e-communications.
There is generally a lack of meaningful evaluation of communications activities. There is a reluctance to carry out research prior to a campaign or evaluation afterwards. Encouragingly 77% of managers and members see the value of using public opinion research to measure the impact of communications. This indicates that communications should not just be measured by the number of positive media stories, but rather how well informed the audiences are and whether real changes in
4 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT attitudes and behaviours have been delivered. At present, residents seem uninformed about the work of the council and the value of its work (47%). In such a vacuum it is clear that some negative national newspaper stories about councils are being read as being reflective of the council. In particular the council needs to focus on proving to residents it provides them with value for money and is improving the city for the better.
Southampton City Council needs to deliver a compelling story for the authority, with which to champion the interests of the area. It needs to communicate how it is leading the city through the recession and build its brand as a major city with much to offer. There is an urgent need for quite radical change in order to unify council communications on grounds of efficiency and effectiveness. Posts that are currently spread throughout the organisation do not appear to be adding measurable value to the goals of the authority, rather they are causing duplication of work and friction. The authority and resources for communications should be unified around a corporate plan, with clear targets from April 2009. This report identifies a potential saving on current spending of up to £100,000 immediately and more later when further investigation has been carried out.
The benefit of this unification will be seen in terms of better communications across the council. This will mean a campaign-based approach to champion the objectives of the organisation and its partners. The new and significantly different team structure would deliver 15 campaigns with clear objectives and timescales. A key priority will be a sustained value for money campaign over the next 12 months.
In conclusion, we believe Southampton City Council has the ambition to deliver Gold Standard communications and operate at closer to 70-80% of potential effectiveness rather than our assessed 40%. There is clear evidence that the political and officer leadership of the authority are prepared to unite behind a compelling shared ambition for the area and articulate that consistently over time through a strong central communications team.
To summarize, the key recommendations are as follows; Strategic • Head of Communications to maintain critical oversight of council communications spending. • A clear remit for corporate communications to enhance the reputation of the council using an annual communications plan to track success • The unification of the communications service across the authority. • Adoption of the proposed new structure. • To use research and evaluation as the basis of decision-making and campaign implementation
Operational • To deliver tasks set out in the annual communications plan • To adopt a campaign-based approach with delivery taking place everyday • To improve City View • To set more demanding media targets
Development • To create a city communications group to build the Southampton brand • Strengthen the professional development for staff • Continue programme of communications training for leading members and officers
5 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
1. Current situation
1.1 Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in Hampshire, on the south coast of England. It is one of the biggest commercial ports in Europe and has a population of 231,200.
It boasts a rich maritime history; the Mayflower set sail from Southampton for the New World in 1620 while today its docks are integral to the cruise industry. During the Second World War, large parts of the city were destroyed by the Luftwaffe and have since been rebuilt, mainly around the civic centre hub of Southampton City Council.
Seven percent of Southampton’s population comes from ethnic minorities. Major employers include Southampton City Council, the University of Southampton, the Ford Transit factory and the NHS.
Residents identify the top priorities for improvement as road and pavement repairs, the level of crime and activities for teenagers.
There are circumstances in Southampton which make taking the step to first class communications ambitious; there was no overall control of the council between May 2001 and May 2008 and in every three out of four years the council must hold an election, meaning political leadership can change on a regular basis.
The council became a unitary authority in 1997 and it should be considered that average satisfaction levels, amongst residents, are generally lower for unitaries than for other types of authorities. For this report comparisons are made with similar unitary authorities and against IDeA and LGA benchmarking standards.
1.2 Southampton media
The council operates in a challenging local media environment. Our impression is that the main external messages of the council are driven by reactive communications to stories generated by the Southern Daily Echo, and press releases issued to reflect the latest council decision or document.
The top media sources in Southampton are BBC National and South Today, followed by ITV1 Meridian and the Southern Daily Echo. A third of residents use BBC online as a source of news. See overleaf.
6 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Top Media In the last 7 days BBC1 National News 67%
BBC South Today 62%
ITV1 Meridian 56%
Southern Daily Echo 55%
ITV1 National News 49%
BBC online 34%
The Southampton Advertiser 33%
Radio 1 28%
Sun 28%
GMTV 27%
Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
The Southern Daily Echo is the most frequently read local newspaper with over half reading it at least once a week. This is followed by the Southampton Advertiser. After the Sun, the most read national newspaper is the Daily Mail (14%) and the Mirror (10%). TV viewing is dominated by the BBC while BBC Radio 1 (28%) is the most popular radio station. Twenty per cent of residents have listened to Power FM/Galaxy South Coast in the last seven day (see Appendix A for the Who Reads What Survey).
Our findings show that the Southern Daily Echo should not be dismissed as it is widely read by residents. Engagement with the newspaper is urgently required. However, the media team needs to recognise the importance of other media channels and target them accordingly.
1.3 Southampton City Council
The fact that the council has implemented a review of communications suggests it is interested in developing a more strategic view and improved communications, however the council is attempting to cover too much in terms of the messages it delivers to residents and stakeholders. The Cabinet recently came up with six new aims. These are;
• Providing good value, high quality services • Getting the city working • Investing in education and training • Working to keep people safe • Working with people to keep the city clean and green
7 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
• Ensuring the ongoing health, welfare and wellbeing of all our residents
In our view this covers all functions of a council rather than focusing on what the actual priorities are for the coming year. They can also be applied to any local authority in the country. The council needs to identify a key message or a narrative that would be a good starting point for building the council’s reputation. This is discussed further in section four of this report.
This lack of focus is repeated in the Local Strategic Partnership City of Southampton branding document which has four statements, six themes and 21 aspirations, again covering all aspects of city life.
1.4 Southampton City Council’s corporate communications team
There are 22 posts in corporate communications. The team is led by the head of communications who oversees the department, the corporate communications plan and key campaigns. She is responsible for providing strategic communications advice to the executive team and cabinet. The assistant head of communications leads the media and marketing teams which include a senior media officer and two marketing officers, a senior communications officer and two communications officers and an internal communications officer.
The design and publications team is led by the Design and Production Manager. There are five designers including a senior designer and a senior publications and public information officer and assistant. There is also an electronic communications officer and a sponsorship and advertising officer.
The team is supported by two admin support officers.
It is estimated that there are at least 20 other officers doing some communications work outside the corporate communications team. Following an analysis of their job descriptions we added up an estimate of the percentage time they spend carrying out communications. This led to an estimate of a total of 14 officers carrying out communications around the council.
There is also ad hoc activity around the council which could be incorporated within the team. For example, some managers report writing their own press releases and implementing their own campaigns. Internal communications is carried out by a number of officers and departments across the council. This is discussed further in section 2.2
Key findings about the team:
• Leadership should be far more effective: the head of communications needs to be able to give professional advice at the earliest stages to help members and officers shape council policy. The corporate remit of the head of communications needs a far wider role to forge better relationships with partners and drive forward communications for the city. • There are fractious relations between corporate communications and parts of the rest of the council: There is a general lack of trust in and respect for the communications team which has led to departments carrying out their own communications work. These difficult relationships are having a detrimental effect on the corporate team’s ability to function as some departments do not
8 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
want to work with them or have created communications functions within their own teams. • Many team members do not have the appropriate skills to build confidence in evidence-based communications and influence decision makers to win resources for communications. • Planning and delivery: The team has prepared strategies and plans but there is little evidence of actual delivery of tasks.
However, the team works within a difficult environment where some departments treat communications as a service to use when required rather than a vehicle for improving the council as a whole.
9 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
2. Current Outputs 2.1 Corporate Communications Team The key outputs are:
Output Analysis
City View Resident newspaper with 24 pages produced 10 times a year. Distributed to 97,000 people across the council. 57% of residents claim to use this as a source of information about the council, just below local newspapers (61%). However, their top recall is the opening of Ikea and the Christmas Ice rink. Only 22% of all residents recall stories about the council providing good value for money and 23% what the council is doing to help residents through the recession. Content needs to be focused more on case studies and human interest stories and based around the council’s key corporate messages.
Flipside An annual magazine for young people telling them what activities are taking place over the summer holidays. There is no evaluation of the success of the magazine.
A-Z Published in September, the A-Z is a comprehensive guide to council services. There has been no evaluation into whether residents find it useful or if this is the right time for its publication.
Internal communications There are a number of channels to get the message across to staff including InView, a message cascade, a weekly bulletin and the intranet. However, control of internal communications is fragmented across the council with HR taking control of a number of projects.
Media relations The media team delivers 5 to 10 media releases a week. This is marginally less than Portsmouth (10) and slightly less than Nottingham (9). However, only 50-60% are ever actually used. The majority of their time is spent dealing with reactive media enquiries (or with their other roles of account management) mainly from the Southern Daily Echo. The relationship with the Echo is fractious. The team needs to make better use of regional, national and trade media and target its stories better.
Design The design team carries out 800 jobs a year including key council publications CityView, InView and Flipside. This is high and further investigation is required to find out whether less could be done without harming the
10 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
reputation of the council.
Campaigns Last year, the corporate communications team worked on a number of minor campaigns as and when they were asked by departments. There were only a few planned campaigns including What’s on at Christmas and Voting for Helen. There were no campaigns around the council’s priorities therefore important issues such as the council providing value for money and reassuring the public on crime went largely ignored.
Web There is a devolved publishing model. The corporate communications team manages the home page and corporate information. The web editor monitors web officers around the council and sends them a quarterly review of their work.
2.2 Other parts of the council Throughout the review it was clear that a large amount of communications activity goes on outside the corporate communications team. The key outputs within other parts of the council are: Output Description Campaigns A number of managers report planning and implementing their own campaigns because corporate communications does not have the resources to do it for them. Media A number of managers report having to write their own media releases and articles for CityView because corporate communications does not have the resources to do it for them. Design There is some ad hoc work around the council. For example SureStart spent £150,000 with an external agency. It is possible, therefore, that there are a number of other external projects going on. Publications There are a number of small publications around the council which are not seen by corporate communications. Sometimes departments will agree to join ventures with advertising companies which are paid-for by advertising. Web There have recently been a number of sites identified which are hosted externally costing the council considerable sums. For example the school meals site. Advertising External advertising is booked by departments, therefore there is no quality control. Internal communications There is activity taking place around the council. Some departments appear to bypass the corporate communications team and prefer to manage their own internal communications.
11 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
All services were asked to take part in an online communications audit survey. Fourteen did so. These were:
• Children's Services and Learning • City Catering • Commissioning Adult Care and Support • Decent Homes • Housing Solutions • Infrastructure and Capital Projects • IT • Later Years • Leisure Business Support and Events • Libraries • Partnership Office, • Property and Procurement • Stronger Communities and Equalities Team • Student Finance
This audit survey did not ask for opinions but sought facts about communications activity. The table below shows the number of services that said that they or the corporate team mainly provided communications output. For only two areas, design and media, did services say the corporate team mainly provided them. Services clearly stated that they are the ones dealing with internal communications, marketing campaigns, strategic planning, proactive communications, events, website and intranet content and a large part of reactive communications and content for CityView.
Q: Who mainly provide the following for your service? Corporate External Internally Internally in No- Total team agency in service directorate one responses Design service 10 0 0 0 1 11 Media relations 8 0 2 1 1 12 Reactive 5 0 5 1 1 12 communications Content in City 5 0 5 1 0 11 View Internal 3 0 9 0 0 12 communications Marketing 3 0 5 0 2 10 campaigns Strategic 2 0 7 3 0 12 communications planning Proactive 2 0 8 2 0 12 communications Website content 1 0 9 2 0 12 Event 0 0 10 1 1 12 management Intranet content 0 0 10 2 0 12
When asked to quantify the number of full-time equivalent hours staff members in a service were working on communications activity an average of 13 hours a week. See Table below was recorded. We believe that this is a good estimate of the degree of communications activity for each service beyond the activity highlighted in
12 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Appendix E. This is nearly two whole working days for each service and illustrates the spread of resources across the organisation. It illustrates activity by services which could be reduced by a better functioning Corporate Communications team.
Similarly there were six instances recorded of services using external agencies for media work, proactive communications, website content, event management and marketing campaigns. This was all external work that could have been handled by the corporate team, and kept resources within the organisation.
What, if anything, are the approximate Full Time Equivalent (FTE) number of hours which are spent by staff in your service each week on the following activities? If none please write in 0 Total FTE hours Service estimated Children's Services and Learning 37 Infrastructure and Capital Projects 37 Housing Solutions 20 Decent Homes 13 Libraries 11 Stronger Communities and Equalities Team 8 Property and Procurement 1.75 IT 0.5 City Catering 0.4 Commissioning Adult Care and Support Blank Leisure Business Support and Events Blank Later Years Blank Student Finance Blank Partnership Office Blank Total 128.7 Average (for those giving an estimate) 14.3
13 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
3. Current impact and assessment of communications activity
3.1 Southampton City Council overall
The LGA Reputation campaign sets out five communications activities that are seen to be essential for good communications. These criteria are set out in the table below and Southampton City Council is rated Gold (delivered and evaluated), Silver (being delivered) or Bronze (planned) against each criteria:
Communication Issues to cover Achievement against criteria Rating criteria
• Planning Forward planning for major events/issues is Bronze Manage the • Pro-active media work hit and miss. Some events are thought media • Evaluation and through such as Ikea and are therefore well understanding of media received by the media. However, some coverage issues/events need better management at • Tools used to promote work an earlier stage and better briefing of of the council councillors for example asbestos. The media team needs to increase its output especially the amount of press releases published by tailoring its releases to specific media. Only 40% of output is put to good use, this ought to be around 80%. There is monthly monitoring of media coverage but it needs to be better evaluated. Needs to be better use of different channels. • Layout and explanation of The council produces an annual A-Z guide Silver A-Z guide services of services sent via Royal Mail distribution to • Language used every household in the city. This is sent out • Delivery processes during customer services week and there is • Number of access points a small awareness campaign around it to (phone, email etc) raise the profile of publication. There has • Format been no evaluation of the publication and whether this is the right time to send it out. The A-Z guide is clearly laid out and gives a comprehensive explanation of services. It uses plain language and avoids council jargon. It also offers a range of access points (phone, email, post, personal contact etc) and cross-reference to your website. • Language 10 publications a year, delivered part Silver Magazine or • Format postal, part door-drop. newspaper • Type of stories Research shows some impact on council • Service information reputation but it is not as influential as the • Number of times published local newspaper, and stories about value for • Design and quality money are not imprinting themselves on residents. Service information is covered but there needs to be a clear understanding of what residents want and content should cover the council’s message, linked to priorities and key campaigns to evaluate what people want. The language of the magazine is quite corporate and needs to focus on human interest stories and case studies to sell its message better. • Current brand perception The council is not clear what it wants to be Bronze Council branding • Brand aspiration known for. Its current key priorities are too
14 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
• Consistent visual identity broad. across departments The visual identity of the council is • Staff advocates consistent across the council. Centralising • Centralised messaging messaging is difficult because of the number • Number of logos/identities of the number of council officers carrying out across council communications across the council. • Evaluation There has been staff evaluation but it is Bronze Internal • Advocacy ratings difficult for the corp comms team to act upon Communications • Face to face communication it as it does not have overall control of • Staff understanding of key internal communications. There is some policies and working face to face communication but research practices shows team meetings are taking place infrequently. Advocacy ratings are not available. Overall Bronze
Southampton meets the Bronze standard of the Reputation standard, although there has been some recent improvement in managing the media and communications planning since the communications review began.
The LGA Reputation campaign also sets out seven environmental criteria. These are the real world actions which show residents what the council is delivering. It is worth noting that service delivery is stronger than communications.
Table 1: LGA environmental criteria
Environmental Achievement against criteria Rating criteria (gold, silver, bronze) Branded cleaning Was very good but has become a little fractured over the past Silver operation couple of years and needs refreshing. SCC logo clear but not which service and this would be helpful for Clean City / street cleaning message especially as so many colas vehicles are yellow too!
No gaps in cleansing Neighbourhood Services cover all areas and provide a single contract response – supported by other such as city patrol and Gold Neighbourhood wardens. One environmental number Actionline 0800 5191919 Gold
Deal with ‘grot spots’ Area based teams supported by Reactive specialist team and a stretch target to reduce fly-tipping mean we don’t have any grot Gold spots as such. Crews tackle specific areas too
Abandoned cars/fly- 24 hour response Gold tipping
Green Flag Award 4 Green Flags and 1 Green Pennant (applying for 7 and 1 in 2009) Gold Educate and enforce Enforcement Road shows, Fixed Penalty Notices issued and Gold followed via the courts, national recognition for best practice in dealing with “litterbugs”
15 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
IDeA ‘Connecting with Communities criteria
The Improvement and Development Agency’s ‘Connecting with Communities’ project offers a tool for analysing the whole council’s approach to communications. The table below sets out the criteria of this tool and how Southampton City Council performs against each. This is based entirely on the council’s own performance against these criteria, bearing in mind local circumstances, and not in comparison with other authorities.
This table is based on the Connecting with Communities criteria established in 2003 and the new ‘Business Case for communications’ developed in 2006.
Area Issues to cover Analysis Rating Areas for (%) improvement Evidence of Political commitment There is evidence 50% Political and Communications Managerial commitment of some political managerial backing leadership Communications and managerial for a centralised leadership commitment. corporate Council story in place Communications communications and communicated leadership does not team. Evidence of a corporate provide advice to Communications approach, including help the council leadership needs to identifying opportunities shape policy so the provide advice. to rationalise functions communications Need for council to implications are decide what its understood. There priorities are and is no council story get its narrative in except for place. immediate priorities and they are too broad. There is some evidence of corporate approach to branding. Other communications activity is carried out across the council. This shows a lack of trust in corporate communications. State of Communications There is evidence 40% Communications communications strategy of strategic strategy needs to strategy and plan Audiences including planning but it is not be based on hard to reach groups followed through to campaign Work plan its conclusion. implementation and Messages There is work going needs to be on to identify hard followed through. to reach groups through Mosaic. There is a work plan but it covers strategy rather than action. Effectiveness of Output, out-take and There is a variety of 35% Communications performance outcome measures data but it is not strategy must be measures Benchmarking linked to linked to evaluation. Success in reaching communications goals strategy Council-wide Two way Corporate comms 35% Value of understanding communications by does not contribute communications why authority to the effectiveness needs to be communications Corporate Comms of services and understood by the is important contribution to effective does not contribute council.
16 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
services, to better reputation Corporate contribution to or positive better reputation and relationships. positive relationships
Building Information provision to The council carries 45% Use the next staff reputation from frontline staff out an annual survey to ask staff within Information sharing survey but the more fully what they about the organisation communication think about ‘Informed’ ratings for questions do not tell communications. staff us much about what people think. Information provision is through a number of channels including line managers the information cascade. Communicating Two-way The council uses 50% Develop a number with residents communications building service-led of integrated trust consultation with campaigns that Mix of methods residents but this bring together the Use of marketing tools consultation is work of Use of electronic and limited in the way it consultation, media, digital channels informs the way public affairs and Resident views taken on communications marketing board are handled. communications to Some use of address specific different channels issues over a but residents mainly sustained period of form their views time in a way that is from the media. measured and Rumour, evidence driven. speculation and national stories are often interpreted as happening in Southampton. Only a small number of campaigns are run and do not necessarily cover key priorities. Positive media Assessment of media Media relations with 40% As above with relationships influence local newspaper additional proactive Relationship with local, are strained. Media work to target regional and national influence is low regional and media because not always national media. Pro-active story planning understanding and message threats and management opportunities early enough and briefing in good time. Message management needs to improve. Too much focus on local media and not enough on regional, national and trade Pride of place Consistent Identity of There is a 40% The council needs services perception that the to create a narrative Contribution to shaping council has a to tell area identity reasonably strong Southampton’s Strength of area brand corporate ID. The story that balances Role with partners in design is robust but its past with its
17 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
providing seamless the focus is on the future. Work with public service imagery rather than partners to build the the messages area brand. behind it. The corporate ID can often be linked more to commercial ventures rather than good quality services. There has been a lot of research carried out on the area brand but there is confusion on how it can be implemented. Communications Investment in staff There is some 40% Invest in ambition Setting targets for development professional improvement strategy for staff but membership and Delivery on KPIs it is not backed by development for investment in every staff member professional and incentivise membership or campaign development. outcomes. Targets are set and delivery is expected on KPIs but KPIs do not always cover campaign output. Consultation Joined-up comms and Consultation 35% Integrate consultation exercises are not consultation into a Acting on results linked with corporate campaign priorities campaigning and often the data approach to is not acted upon. communications See also communicating with residents. Total 41%
On the analysis of this review, Southampton City Council meets 41% of the requirements for highly effective communications.
3.2 Residents’ perceptions of the council
The residents’ opinion survey1 shows that the council is underperforming in the way it communicates. Satisfaction with the council and perceptions of value for money are low, and residents feel relatively uninformed and less than one in four speak highly of it.
1 Westminster City Council conducted a public opinion survey of residents. 500 telephone interviews were undertaken by the independent research company Infocorp and analysis was completed by Westminster City Council. Participants were chosen at random with quotas set by and data weighted by age, gender and work status to the known profile of Southampton (16+). Fieldwork was conducted between 19 and 26 February 2009. Comparisons have been made with other authorities where appropriate.
18 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Performance Dashboard
Speak highly of Council gives Satisfaction with Informed about council good value for council services and money benefits
23% 35% 56% 49% Speak highly Agree Satisfied Informed
Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009 Question: Which one of these comes closest to how you feel about Southampton City Council?/Do you agree or disagree that the council offers good value for money?/Taking everything into account, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the way Southampton City Council runs things?/ How well informed do you feel Southampton City Council keeps you about the services and benefits it provides?
The impact of the local media is strong, with high penetration for the Southampton Echo. Those who read it are more likely to be critical of the council. National news stories are also influencing residents with significant proportions of residents thinking, for example, that the council lost money in Icelandic Banks (which they did not). It is clear that general stories about wasteful councils across the country are being read as reflecting what Southampton City Council is like.
The council magazine has a high penetration and is liked by readers but its impact is not counteracting the impact of the media, or raising how informed people feel about the council as much as would be expected.
19 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
What do residents say about the council?
Around a quarter (23%) residents speak highly of Southampton City Council, however a very similar proportion would be critical (26%). Half (50%) say they have no views either way of what they think about the council.
Advocacy I would speak highly of the council 6% without being asked I would speak highly of the council 17% if I was asked about it
I have no views one way or the 50% other I would be critical of the council if I 14% was asked about it I would be critical of the council 12% without being asked
Don’t know 1%
Question: Which one of the following comes closest to how you feel about Southampton City Council? Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009.
The challenge here is to find out how to deal with the issues these groups hold – understanding how people become advocates and persuading critics and those on the fence to change their views:
Advocates (23% of all residents) are more likely to:
• Think services have got better over the last 12 months (advocacy rises to 54%) • Feel the council offers good value for money (42%) • Think the media reports positively on the council (42%) • Heard the story about the council providing value for money (38%) • Be satisfied with the council (36%) • Be informed about plans for future of Southampton (33%) • Be informed about services and benefits (32%) • Heard the story about how the council dealt with the snowfall disruption (32%)
Critics (26% of all residents) are more likely to:
• Be dissatisfied with the council (criticism rises to 71%) • Think services have got worse over the last 12 months (46%) • Disagree the council offers good value for money (42%) • Contacted the council (40%) • Think the media reports negatively on the council (38%) • Not be informed about plans for future of Southampton (35%)
20 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
• Be aged 55+ (35%) • Not be informed about services and benefits (34%)
Those on the fence (50% of residents) are evenly spread across demographic and opinion groups. The people in this group could swing towards or away from the council depending on the communications and service delivery they receive.
Satisfaction with the way the council runs things currently stands at 56%. Those most likely to feel dissatisfied with the council are most likely to:
° Disagree the council is a leader in the local area (dissatisfaction rises to 49%) ° Think services have got worse over the last 12 months (41%) ° Disagree the council gives good value for money (38%) ° Have heard about the opening of Ikea (36%) ° Be aged over 55 (31%) ° Think media coverage of the council has been negative (29%) ° Have contacted the council (28%) ° Not be informed about services and benefits or plans (both 27%) ° Be in social grades DE (26%)
Reputation as a strong leader in the local area
Only two in five residents (41%) think the council is a strong leader in the local area. Those who feel the council is a leader in the local area are much more likely to feel satisfied with the council, speak highly of it and feel it offers good value for money than residents as a whole.
Positive media stories are a key driver of reputation as a leader in the local area. Seven in ten (69%) of those who feel the media has covered the council in a positive light think it is a strong leader in the local area. The media stories which the council has covered recently which have a positive impact on this are: the council providing good value for money (perception of strong leader rises to 61%), the council helping residents and businesses through the recession (53%) and the rejection of free school meals plan rejected (52%).
21 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Keeping residents informed
Half (49%) of residents feel very or fairly well informed about the services and benefits the council provides. A further 30% feel they only get limited information and 17% that the council doesn’t tell residents much at all about what it does (4% don’t know)
How well informed residents feel has a significant impact on how satisfied they are with the council. Informed rating have a positive effect on numerous reputation measures as this table demonstrates.
Measure Very/fairly well Not well informed Difference (+/-%) informed about about services services Satisfaction 66 46 +20 Advocacy 32 15 +17 Value for money 45 25 +20 Leader in local 51 32 +19 area Positive media 23 12 +11 coverage Better services in 25 14 +11 last 12 months
Two thirds of residents (65%) have seen a copy in the last six months.
Those who have seen City View are more likely to rate the council well than those who have not seen it as the chart below shows.
City View - effect on council reputation
Seen Not seen Difference +/- 30% Value for money 38% +8 14% +14 Speak highly 28%
50% Satisfaction 59% +9 Informed about services and 34% +24 benefits 58% 36% Strong leader in local area 44% +8
Question: When did you last have a copy of City View, the council's magazine, delivered through your door? Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
22 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Sources of information
The top five current sources of The top five most preferred sources information about the council are: are:
1. Local newspapers (61%), 1. Local newspapers (32%) 2. City View (57%), 2. City View (32%) 3. Leaflets (45%) 3. Council website (23%) 4. TV (34%) 4. Leaflets (21%) 5. Friends and family (30%). 5. Direct mail (14%).
Local newspapers are the most well used source of information about the council followed City View. These are the top preferred sources too. However, a quarter of residents would prefer to find out about the council via its website.
Internet use and the council website
Three quarters of residents (76%) use the internet and the majority of these use a broadband connection. Around two thirds (63%) of residents who have access to the internet have visited the council website - www.southampton.gov.uk.
Residents who have used the website feel that are quite positive about it. Three quarters saying it is informative (75%) and two thirds think it is easy to find your way around (67%). Around half think it has an appealing design and style (49%) and is interesting (47%).
News Stories
A number of recent news stories about the council were read out to residents. A high proportion (86%) remembered seeing news stories about the opening of Ikea, four in five (78%) had heard about the opening of the ice rink over Christmas. Half (48%) of residents had heard about the closure of two care homes. Fewer residents had heard the positive stories about how the council dealt with the disruption caused by the recent snowfall (33%) or how the council provides good value for money (22%).
23 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Recall of stories Have you recently seen or heard any of the following news stories about the Southampton City Council? (Prompted)
Opening of Ikea 86%
Opening the Ice rink over Christmas 78%
Closure of two care homes 48% How disruption caused by the snowfall was dealt with 33% Helping residents through the recession 23%
Free school meals plan rejected 23%
Council providing value for money 22%
None 4%
Question: And, have you recently seen or heard any of the following news stories about Southampton City Council? PROMPTED Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
The corporate communications team spent a great deal of time working on the top two stories despite the fact neither will have as big an impact on the council’s long term satisfaction levels as value for money and helping residents through the recession.
Residents were also asked whether they had heard a number of stories about what local councils are doing across the country and then whether they think Southampton City Council are doing these. As the chart overleaf demonstrates some residents think Southampton is wasting money (42%) and paying Senior Managers too much (40%).
24 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
National news stories
Southampton (%) 50
Wasting money 40 Paying Senior Managers too much
30 Increasing Council Tax by 4-5% Losing money in 20 Fining people for not Icelandic banks Using Council Tax to pay recycling for LA pensions
10 30 40 50 60 70 Councils across the country (%)
Question: Taking everything into account, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the way Southampton City Council runs things? Overall, do you think that the media has viewed Southampton City Council positively or negatively in the last few months? Source: 500 Southampton residents, 16+, 19-26 February 2009 compared to 10 other Local Authorities.
The chart below merges the two previous charts. It shows the top media stories which residents have heard recently whether they are specific to Southampton or national. Residents are, in some cases, more likely to associate national stories with Southampton City Council than stories the council has promoted.
Top stories heard
The opening of Ikea 86%
Opening the Ice rink over Christmas 78%
Closure of two care homes 48%
Wasting money 42%
Paying senior managers too much 40% How disruption caused by the snowfall was 33% dealt with Increasing council tax by 4-5% 27%
Helping residents through the recession 23%
Free school meals plan rejected 23%
The council providing good value for money 22%
Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
See Appendix C for the more survey results
25 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
3.3 Views of Members and Managers
The survey of members and managers2 shows that communications at Southampton City Council is underperforming, and that there is demand for improvements. The performance dashboard below shows that communications is seen as under- resourced, not serving needs and not being proactive.
Performance Dashboard
Proportion of Communications Communications communications Council is well resourced team serves my activity seen to reputation is at Council needs be proactive strong
25% 42% 33% 29% Agree Agree Agree Agree
Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question: Do you agree or disagree that communications at SCC is well resourced/How well does the corporate communications team serve your needs/Percentage of communications activity at Council you think is proactive/How would you describe the Council’s reputation (questions abbreviated)
Key conclusions
Members and managers are keen on a more proactive communications and more strategic planning. They are also keen on more evaluation of the effectiveness of communications through opinion surveys, something they do not see being done at present. Some comments at the end of the survey reflect some of the general themes of the survey.
Nine in ten (89%) members and managers believe one of the main purposes of Southampton City Council’s communications activities is to inform residents about services provided. Two in five (39%) think one of the main purposes is to promote Southampton as a city, a quarter (28%) to show residents that the council provides good value for money and one in five (21%) to promote the corporate priorities of the council.
2 15 elected members and 54 managers completed the survey
26 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Most important for the Council to improve Top five
Proactive communications 51%
Media relations 47%
Strategic communications planning 47%
Website design 36%
Website content 32%
Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question 12: Which two or three, if any, of the following do you think is most important for the council to improve?
See Appendix B for the full results
3.4 The views of staff
The current staff survey contains very little information about communications and we would recommend that Southampton City Council conducts a more comprehensive staff survey than the current version and ensure staff are not only asked about what information they receive but how well informed they think the council keeps them about what the council is doing.
To supplement this survey a focus group was held among staff. The majority of attendees were invited by the corporate communications team. Most of those who attended clearly had concerns about the corporate communications team. They focused very much on their working relationship with the team. It was clear that some had had better experiences than others, and that in some cases personal relationships were not strong. In the worse cases there was a lack of respect for the work of the communications team. There was a feeling that the quality of the work was not of a sufficiently high standard and that the team were difficult to work with. There was a perception that team members did not understand the needs of the services. This was perceived to lead to the services themselves having to take on more of the communications work, for example writing press releases and designing campaigns.
There was also a feeling that the team was keen to work on fun and exciting projects or ideas, but left seemingly dull work for the services to deal with. For example, talking about quality services was not seen as important as running an interesting competition. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the situation, and the communications team dispute the validity of this group, the clear impression was given that the communications team has not sold the quality of their strategic advice to some in the council. It may very well be a minority opinion, but this opinion exists nonetheless
27 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT and was backed up by interviews with senior managers and directors. They could not see that the means matched the objective of the communications. Staff in the group repeatedly asked for clearer evaluation of campaigns, longer timescales and planning, and clear objectives. Overall, it is clear that both sides of this discussion do not see eye to eye and have difficulty mediating a successful communications plan.
In terms of internal communications there was no clear awareness of corporate aims beyond the desire to save money. Staff reported receiving information about what the council was doing from different sources.
3.5 The views of journalists
The Southern Daily Echo
The editor of the Echo recognised the relationship between the council and his newspaper is fraught although improving. He said the council needed to think more about its vision for Southampton rather than trying to save money. He said it should play to its strengths and promote its heritage and its geographical position as a major port and sea city. He said it was important to open up the city to the sea. He would like Southampton’s most visible emblem, the Bargate, cleaned up as part of a campaign to bring back pride to the city.
The Echo criticised the media team’s handling of the care home closures and said it was an example of poor PR which led to worse media coverage than might have been expected. He said the media team should take a more professional attitude towards criticism. However, he said the Echo would be prepared to adhere to embargos and would welcome timely briefings and partnerships on the right issues.
Regional television and radio
Regional television and radio includes BBC South, ITV’s Meridien, BBC local radio and commercial stations. Most said they found the media team to be helpful and reasonably quick to respond to their queries. All broadcast and radio journalists thought the amount of press releases they received was about right. This is because they did not want their news agenda to be led by the city council and they did not want to appear Southampton-centric in their coverage. This creates a challenging environment for the media team to work in and will require extra effort and targeting to get further coverage.
All those interviewed said they would like the media team to target their stories better by understanding the specific requirements of radio and television. One said it was difficult to speak to anyone over the weekend because there was no out of hours service.
National
A search of the newspaper database Lexis Nexis reveals that over the past 12 months, Southampton City Council has only been mentioned 14 times in the national press. Two of these were in reference to the recent bout of bad weather that hit much of the country earlier this year while the others appear to have been largely reactive or negative and not placed by the council's press office.
A senior specialist correspondent on The Times said she did not receive any press releases or story ideas from the council's press office. She said that she was always
28 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT open to 'strong and fresh' news stories and would be open to pitches from Southampton which she said was an "interesting" city and would provide a good contrast with the "London-centric" stories which she often writes about. Similarly, a senior reporter on the Daily Mail said he too did not have any contact with the council's press office. He added, however, that he would welcome more stories from Southampton but said that it was important that the story ideas were pitched correctly and they understood his paper's news agenda. A Sun journalist who includes Southampton as part of his news patch said the council should make better use of Solent News, an agency in Southampton which feeds stories to the national newspapers. A journalist for the MJ magazine said she had never been approached with a story from the Southampton media team despite dealing with neighbouring councils of Portsmouth and Brighton. She said the MJ would be interested in receiving Southampton stories.
Media coverage in key national newspapers
March 08 - March 09
Number of The Daily Daily Mail, The Sun, Total mentions in Times, Telegraph, Mail on The News press Sunday Sunday Sunday of the Times Telegraph World
Southampton 3 1 3 1 8
Portsmouth 5 6 7 3 21
Westminster 20 52 8 22 102
This cuttings analysis does not distinguish between passing mentions of the Council or a full article, whether the story was proactively placed or involved the press office. It does not distinguish between positive or negative coverage. It simply records every mention of the words `Southampton Council’, `Southampton City Council’ etc in the publication.
Conclusion
In 2007/8, the media team sent out an average of 30 proactive press releases a month, with 53% actually used by the media. Figures taken from the Communication team’s own Quarterly Report for Oct-Dec 2008 show a similar average for press releases but the hit rate has dropped to 40% (although some of this could be down to poor media monitoring). This number of press releases used is unusually low and should be around 80-90%. Ten percent of press releases at Westminster City Council are not used while in Harrow it is no more than 20%. It means a high percentage of the team’s work is going to waste. The figures for Westminster, above, show the impact a proactive media team can have on these major media channels. For its part, Southampton City Council’s media relations team needs to adopt a more proactive strategy when dealing with the press. A great deal more could be done to widen media relations and its impact. More should also be done to talk about the big issues and strategic plans when dealing with the media and a much greater emphasis must be placed upon reaching regional, trade and national media. The team needs to learn how to tailor its stories to target different types of media.
29 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
The press office, while appearing to have some of the core skills could benefit from a greater campaigning approach to dealing with key issues. Southampton City Council should increase the personal contact between the press team, council officials, members and the media. It must engage with regional and specialist media and become a key contact for journalists. It would also be useful for the media team to consider regional lifestyle magazines. In our view managing media relations is a key role of the Head of Communications and must be at the heart of any new structure or revised position.
3.6 The views of partners
The main conclusions from a forum of the city’s partners were that the city had failed to settle on a convincing story and had a ‘dated’ approach to Southampton’s place in the national market. Those present believed that the city has never reconciled the divergence between the desire to be seen as ‘aspirational’ and the need to address the concerns of many working class residents. Allied to this was a desire to cling onto the past in terms of iconic issues such as the Spitfire and the Titanic, which are backward looking, but do reflect the working class heritage and common memory.
City Council communications was satisfactory, marked by good ‘service’ communications and partner liaison but weaker on vision, web and delivery on major initiatives.
This has created a gap where the latter group feel alienated from the promises of major developments and improvements to the city. This is compounded among residents, major organisations and the media by the perception that the authority does not deliver on major projects.
The idea of Southampton as a “gateway city” was not seen as a strength. A gateway as “somewhere that you pass through rather than stay” was highlighted. This is a major weakness. Southampton cannot be seen as an appealing destination if it is simply a ‘gateway’.
30 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
4. Delivering the story
Introduction
The Cabinet recently came up with six new priorities. These are;
• Providing good value, high quality services • Getting the city working • Investing in education and training • Working to keep people safe • Working with people to keep the city clean and green • Ensuring the ongoing health, welfare and wellbeing of all our residents
These priorities were tested in resident focus groups and had little resonance with them. It was clear that they interpreted the term “priorities” as the most important improvements, rather than underlying principles. They could not see how these could be the council’s priorities as they described what the council should be doing anyway. In particular delivering good value, high quality services was what residents saw as the underlying principle of what they get in return for the council tax they pay.
All groups felt the council’s priorities should be improving Southampton as a place to live, in particular making people feel safer and providing more for people to do.
What does the council do?
It was clear across all the groups that respondents were unclear about what the council does. This discussion often led to conversations about how the council operates and how efficient it is.
To study this in more depth in the final two groups respondents were asked to describe the council as a person, money, greed and enjoying the finer things in live came up repeatedly. It was clear that national media stories and local news reporting had given the impression that the council wasted money, or more specifically was using money to advance the needs of officers and members.
Selling Southampton
In this context some of the developments and commercial investment into Southampton can be misinterpreted. Respondents accused the council of being more interested in big business and money coming into Southampton, than improving services in the area. There was no clear link between investment and increased pride in Southampton. Instead there were queries as to where the money went to in such investments.
Keeping in touch
When asked how the council should operate there was a clear request for more involvement for the community. There was some perception of the council acting without consultation.
31 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
The future
It was clear that respondents were proud of Southampton but felt that is had lost some of its charm. There was also a discussion about Southampton providing clear leadership and in particular showing that the council was an efficient and well-run organisation.
Conclusions
There is a perception that the council is selling Southampton, allied to a general feeling that residents have lost many events they enjoyed and don’t have much to do. This could be summed up as too much Ikea and not enough ice rinks.
The council needs to establish itself as providing excellent quality services and value for money because it is well-run. It needs to use the corporate communications team to tackle head on negative perceptions of the council based on local and national media stories.
However, it also needs to show quality and value on the streets and in the actual services delivered. Residents want Southampton to be safe with plenty of things to do, to be a place to visit and enjoy. But, most of all residents want a Southampton that they can be proud of. This is both in terms of the area but also in a council that is trusted to deliver on its promises, provides leadership and consults with residents on its plans for the future.
Therefore, the council’s communications priorities should be substantially re- evaluated and refocused to cover civic pride and demonstrate how good local services provide value for money. It is also important for the Southampton to continue to be positioned as the leading retail centre in the region but also ensure that the needs and aspirations of the city’s residents and diverse communities are also catered for.
32 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
5. Proposed approach and structure
5.1 Proposed approach
For a considerable period prior to the May 2008 elections the council had no overall political control. The council now has a Conservative administration with the next local elections due in 2010.
The difficulties of a hung council are well understood and this has undoubtedly impacted upon the corporate message, direction and communication that could be given out. With a majority administration this brings the opportunity to re-evaluate policy and political direction and this would reasonably be reflected in a refocused communications plan and approach.
Across the council there has been a clear undervaluing of the potential impact of good communications. There is a lack of understanding of what good communications can look like for the council. This has led to the corporate communications team feeling undervalued, but also for managers and individual services to take communication functions on themselves. There are clear activities which should be brought into the corporate communications team and an urgent need to clarify what their role is and what departments have to do to ensure good communications is delivered.
Our proposed approach is one of action. The corporate communication team’s approach needs to be about delivering a higher quality output, but also to proactively advise and inform the council about potential problems and opportunities. To date this appears to have been lacking. They need to develop momentum and push forward the agreed communications plan. This plan would set out the agreed outcomes and the actions needed to reach them. The corporate communication’s team would then use its expertise to deliver high quality communications at the best value for money available.
The structure of the team needs to reflect the needs of the organisation through an agreed communications planning process. The team needs to negotiate with all services to assess their needs and then set out clearly the aims and objectives for the year and the campaigns which will deliver them. The council then needs to ensure that the resources to deliver this are there. This will mean moving people, budgets and functions into the corporate communications team.
We propose expanding the existing team of 22 to 26.This will be achieved in two ways; by restructuring the current team and by centralising the numerous communications functions elsewhere in the council.
The proposed structure below includes the responsibilities identified in this review. It should be the role of the corporate communications team to continue this process and seek out and rationalise any potential wastage in communications activity.
33 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
5.2 New structure
Changes include redefining and strengthening the role of head of communications to create a post with corporate influence over total communications activity and overall spend and budget responsibility, across all directorates.
We have also taken out the layer of management underneath the head of communications to allow for more officers on the frontline, especially in marketing which is seriously under-resourced. The new structure will allow account management to be taken away from the media team leaving them with more time to actually manage the media.
Other areas which have been strengthened include internal communications. This function is dispersed across the council and is in urgent need of centralisation. We also recommend having a research officer working in corporate communications. Our research has shown little evidence of research-based communications and campaigning which is vital to understanding how communications can improve. Management of the website will come under the resources department but corporate communications will continue to work closely with resources and IT to deliver the web.
34 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
5.3 Funding the new approach
We estimated there are at least 20 other officers doing some communications work outside the corporate communications team. Following an analysis of their job descriptions we added up an estimate of the percentage time they spend carrying out communications. This led to an estimate of a total of 14 FTE officers carrying out communications around the council. If a large proportion of their work was brought into corporate communications it would not only fund the strengthening of the corporate communications team but would also provide the council with considerable savings.
Main points (relating only to staffing costs) • The salary cost of the current communications team structure is £537,970 (this is the total salaries of the 22 team members plus 20% on costs and minus the design team which is self-financing by selling its services to other council departments). • However, we estimate more than £400,000 is being spent on communications salaries across the rest of the council (again including 20% on costs). • If we include the annual cost of CityView (£130,000) the estimated spend across the council is around £1m
• The proposed new structure for corporate communications team will cost around £660,000 for a team of 26 which would better serve the needs of the council.
• The entire communications budget would be around £870,000 (including £130,000 for CityView, a £40,000 research budget, £40,000 campaign budget). This would lead to a saving of at least £100,000 in a centralised structure and would provide for the entire communications needs for the council.
However, as communication delivery is, in some cases, only a small proportion of individuals’ jobs it will not be easy to centralise everything. A sensible route would be to transfer all obvious jobs into corporate communications immediately and then move the rest over time. This review has identified a number of posts outside corporate communications which are predominantly communications roles. Urgent further analysis of these roles is required.
5.4 Other spending in the council
There is clear evidence of spending on communications elsewhere in the council. The print spend for 07/08 was £1.1m while the total spend on advertising and publicity was £2,121,133. Of this £1m can be traced back to advertising spend but there are some anomalies that require further investigation, for example £7,500 to host a school meals website which could be hosted in-house. While Children’s Information Services spent £113,000 on design using an outside agency. A centralised system of communications spend could lead to further savings.
35 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
5.5 Taxpayers Alliance
If Westminster’s recommendations are implemented we believe this could be reduced by decreasing the salary spend on communications and the advertising and promotion spend.
Council Type Satisfaction Value for Informed Informed Spend on Spend on with Council money (BVPI about what about publicity publicity (BVPI Survey Survey 2006) council services and 2006-7 2007-8 2006) spends its benefits (Taxpayers (Taxpayers money on (BVPI Survey Alliance) Alliance) (BVPI Survey 2006) 2006) Kingston upon Hull UA 50 42 41 43 £4,808,000 £4,590,000 Bristol UA 35 32 42 36 £3,961,000 £3,974,000 Blackpool UA 50 41 43 38 £3,687,000 #N/A Nottingham UA 53 44 42 41 £3,166,000 £3,460,000 Derby UA 55 48 48 43 £3,156,000 £3,457,000 Leicester UA 55 44 42 43 £3,095,000 £3,300,000 Luton UA 47 43 42 36 £2,171,000 £2,450,000 Southampton UA 56 47 46 43 £2,496,000 £2,272,000 Bournemouth UA 54 42 43 38 £2,073,727 £2,029,596 York UA 44 42 57 53 £1,654,000 £1,832,000 Brighton & Hove UA 48 36 45 39 £1,793,135 £1,820,655 UA 46 38 44 40 £2,085,000 £1,688,000 Peterborough Plymouth UA 47 35 35 27 £1,631,000 £1,661,000 Portsmouth UA 48 40 36 35 £1,638,000 £1,584,000 Stoke-on-Trent UA 41 36 33 33 £1,563,000 £1,494,000 Isle of Wight UA 46 36 43 36 £715,679 £834,000 Poole UA 63 56 64 55 £555,000 £557,000
This table produced by the Taxpayers’ Alliance shows places Southampton as an average spending authority.
The table also shows data from the 2006 BVPI survey, a comparative survey across authorities. On this basis, among similar authorities, the council was performing well in 2006. Yet, it is clear that spend does not equate to higher scores. Instead it is the utilisation of those resources to deliver results. Without comparative data from the follow-up Place Survey in 2008 it is difficult to tell whether these ratings have changed for all authorities. It is likely that satisfaction has fallen across all authorities. In London, which is the only area we have access to comparative data, 27 out of 33 authorities have seen satisfaction fall. This clearly presents challenges to all local authorities to ensure that satisfaction is maximised through good communications.
36 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
6. Proposed output
Southampton City Council communications needs to move from a focus on channels such as CityView and responding to media enquiries to working through a series of campaigns – linked activities for a common goal to bring the capacity and expertise of the communications team to bear on issues of public perception and behaviour.
Southampton City Council is not fully utilising the key channels for communication to deliver these campaigns. It needs to extend its media reach, diversify the internal communication tools it uses and consider regular use of direct mail and engage people in the decision making process. It also needs to reconsider an over-reliance on printed media and consider the opportunities presented by the internet and by campaigning. These would be significant changes to the current approach.
The proposed structure would be configured to deliver the following outputs • Media relations with a guide of 40-50 news releases each month, with a 80-90% hit rate and 70- 80% favourable coverage. • One regional, one trade and one national story each week • 13 external campaigns covering council priorities and service needs including • Two internal communications activity • Opinion research and evaluation of communications • Council publication and A-Z • Stakeholder communications • Web update • Co-ordination of paid for adverts in local media • An out of hours media service • 10 copies per year of CityView • 500-600 graphic design jobs
37 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
7. Recommendations
Strategic: Evaluation, outputs and outcomes
(a) A clear remit is given to the Head of Communications and the corporate communications team to enhance reputation, help retain and recruit staff and win additional resources for the city through public relations, marketing and internal communications activity.
(b) Success in delivering these goals would be tracked through a communications plan agreed by March each year and signed off by the Chief Executive, relevant cabinet member and Head of Communications with specific targets for staff and resident information, stakeholder engagement, media coverage and campaign output.
(c) The unification of the communications service across the authority into the corporate team. This would also mean a single approach to campaigns, to deliver a service goal. The corporate team should work with service to deliver behavioural or perception change and thereby change the focus from communication outputs to real benefits for the community. Communications officers would work across all services in the council rather than for specific partnerships or functions as this allows increased output, focus on priorities and the ability for officers to take a corporate view of council reputation.
(d) In order to carry out the centralisation of the communications service there is an urgent need to further investigate the amount of communications carried out across the council. This would include an investigation of individual officers believed to be carrying out communications as part of their job description as well as communications carried out over and above their job descriptions. Central to this would be uplifting the role of Head of Communications to;
1. Adopt the proposed new structure for the Corporate Communications team which reflects the need for strong marketing and media teams to implement the campaign-based approach. It could also deliver potential cost savings of up £100,000 in terms of current communications spending across the authority.
2. Maintain critical oversight of the council’s communications spend.
3. Use research and evaluation as the basis of decision-making and campaign implementation including MOSAIC research.
4. Adopt a new corporate mission statement. This should form the basis of an engagement programme with the local population.
Operational: Deliver the plan
The revised Head of Communications role above should be responsible for delivery of the following;
(a) Deliver with urgency the tasks set out in the annual communications plan and track delivery through monthly feedback to the Chief Officers Management Team.
38 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
(b) Adopt a campaign-based approach to serve departments and concentrate the communications effort. Aim for 23 external and two internal campaigns in a unified structure and ensure delivery takes place every day.
(c) Improve CityView. Content should reflect the council’s priorities and key messages endorsed by human interest stories and real-life case studies and localised stories. There should be a more transparent process for departments to get stories into CityView and better evaluation of its success.
(d) Compile a City Database with an initial target of 500 stakeholders to be used as a marketing tool. Use the database to strengthen relations with stakeholders by holding regular briefings on issues important to them.
(e) Set more demanding media targets; at least one regional, national and trade press story each week. Improved targeting to increase the media team’s hit rate from 40-50% to 80-90%.
(f) Implement a media strategy to deal with the Southern Daily Echo. This would involve timely briefings, relationship and partnership building and better targeting of stories.
(g) Provide an out-of-hours media service and weekday morning updates on national and local news sent to all senior managers. The team needs to proactively be one step ahead of the local media and the council needs to open up its report writing process to keep the corporate communications team in the loop on potential developments.
(h) Ensure all publications and publicity materials are approved through the corporate team, on the basis of a clearly understood objective and evaluated accordingly.
(i) Ensure that all paid for advertising is approved and bought by the corporate team.
(j) The head of communications to attend the weekly policy managers’ team meeting in order to help shape council strategy as opposed to responding to it and to provide advice on the impact of the council’s decision-making. The head of communications to manage the corporate communications enhanced budget and for the position to be significantly revised and refocused to give communications a more corporate role.
(k) Repeat the managers and members poll on an annual basis to assess progress in delivering better communications.
(l) Co-ordinate internal communications within the corporate team. The council needs to encourage good morale by promoting communications between departments, senior managers and staff, and among staff themselves.
(m) Cabinet members and portfolio holders must inform corporate communications if they are contacted by or contacting the media. There should be a unified approach between officers and cabinet members to proactively promoting the council.
39 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Development: Professionalise the service and include other public services
The revised Head of Communications role above should be responsible for delivery of the following;
(a) Create a city communications group to build the Southampton brand based on a plan with clear targets to communicate, lobby and co-ordinate on behalf of Southampton public services. The head of communications will lead this group and build better working relations with city-wide partners including joint working on campaigns which straddle more than one remit, for example; community reassurance with the police.
(b) Strengthen the professional development available to staff in terms of ensuring they continue to improve as communications technicians, recognising the power of new media tools, different ways of approaching old problems and the benefits from working across disciplines.
(c) Continue to implement a programme of communication training for leading members and senior officers to improve their general communication and media handling skills.
40 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
8. Appendices
Appendix a: Southampton media: Who Reads What survey
Appendix b: Members and Managers survey
Appendix c: Residents survey
Appendix d: Current structure of the corporate communications team
Appendix e: Proposed new structure and salaries
Appendix f: Communications plan
Appendix g: Performance report
41 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
APPENDIX A: Southampton media; Who Reads What survey
Local Newspapers The most frequently read newspaper is the Southern Daily Echo with over half reading it at least once a week, this is followed by The Southampton Advertiser (33%).
Local newspapers Read at least once a week
Southern Daily Echo 56%
The Southampton Advertiser 33%
Hampshire Chronicle 2%
Question: How often, if at all, have you read [named local paper] in the last month? Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
National Newspapers
The Sun has been read by over a quarter of Southampton in the last seven days. Other popular papers include the Daily Mail (14%) and the Mirror (10%).
42 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
National newspapers Read in the last seven days Sun 28% Daily Mail 14% Mirror 10% Times 7% Daily Express 6% Daily Telegraph 4% Guardian 4% Independent 4% Daily Star 1% Metro 1% None – do not read national paper 38%
Question: Which, if any, national newspapers have you read in the last seven days? Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
TV News
As Westminster has found elsewhere it is national television news which has the highest reach. BBC is top of the table but even GMTV News reach as many people as some national and local newspapers.
TV News Watched in the last 7 days
BBC1 National News 67% BBC South Today 62% ITV1 Meridian 55% ITV1 National News 49% GMTV News 27% BBC News 24 25% Sky News 20% Channel 4 News 19% Five News 16% Newsnight 13% Other news programmes 2% None 11%
Question: Have you watched any of the following television news programmes in the last seven days? Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
43 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Radio
Radio use is fairly widespread and diverse. BBC Radio 1 is the most listened to with 28% of residents’ listening in the last seven days. One in five (22%) say they have not listened to the radio in the last seven days.
Radio Listened to in the last 7 days – Top 5
BBC Radio 1 28%
Power FM/Galaxy South Coast 20%
Wave 105 16%
BBC Radio Solent 14%
BBC Radio 2 11%
Question: Which, if any, radio stations did you listen to in the last seven days? Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
Southampton media
The top media sources in Southampton are BBC National and South Today, followed by ITV1 Meridian and the Southern Daily Echo. A third of residents use BBC online as a source of news.
44 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Top Media In the last 7 days BBC1 National News 67%
BBC South Today 62%
ITV1 Meridian 56%
Southern Daily Echo 55%
ITV1 National News 49%
BBC online 34%
The Southampton Advertiser 33%
Radio 1 28%
Sun 28%
GMTV 27%
Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
45 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Appendix B: Members and Managers survey
Views of Members and Managers
The survey of members and managers3 shows that communications at Southampton City Council is underperforming, and that there is demand for improvements. The performance dashboard below shows that communications is seen as under- resourced, not serving needs and not being proactive.
Performance Dashboard
Proportion of Communications Communications communications Council is well resourced team serves my activity seen to reputation is at Council needs be proactive strong
25% 42% 33% 29% Agree Agree Agree Agree
Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question: Do you agree or disagree that communications at SCC is well resourced/How well does the corporate communications team serve your needs/Percentage of communications activity at Council you think is proactive/How would you describe the Council’s reputation (questions abbreviated)
Key conclusions
Members and managers are keen on a more proactive communications and more strategic planning. They are also keen on more evaluation of the effectiveness of communications through opinion surveys, something they do not see being done at present. Some comments at the end of the survey reflects some of the general themes of the survey.
Nine in ten (89%) members and managers believe one of the main purposes of Southampton City Council’s communications activities is to inform residents about services provided. Two in five (39%) think one of the main purposes is to promote Southampton as a city, a quarter (28%) to show residents that the council provides good value for money and one in five (21%) to promote the corporate priorities of the council.
3 15 elected members and 54 managers completed the survey
46 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Main purposes of the Council’s communications activities Inform residents about services provided 89%
Promote Southampton as a city 39%
Show residents the council provides 27% good value for money
Promote corporate priorities of the 21% council Increase coverage of council in local newspapers/media 3%
Other 13%
Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question 2: Which one or two, if any, of the following are the main purposes of Southampton City Council’s communications activities?
Southampton City Council is deemed to communicate best with its staff (71% well). Residents and Councillors are also well communicated with; 63% and 60% respectively. As the chart below shows, few state that the Council communicates very well with others. Well in this context is fairly well and therefore open to improvement. It should also be said that two thirds (63%) think the council does not communicate well with the media. Members are slightly more positive than managers.
47 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Effectiveness of communication
Staff 7% 21% 69% 2%
Residents 3% 32% 62% 2%
Councillors 2% 8% 47% 13%
Community groups/stakeholders 8% 33% 33% 5%
Media 23% 40% 24% 3% Very well Fairly well Not very well External bodies 24% 32% 26% 0% Not at all well
Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question 15: Overall, how well does the corporate communications team serve your needs?
Half of members/managers (46%) think the success of communications at the Council is currently measured in terms of the number of positive news stories in local newspapers. The same percentage (46%) think the number of residents who are satisfied as shown by surveys currently measures communications success, whilst four in five (77%) think the number of residents who feel well informed as shown by surveys should be the way the success of communications should be measured at the council. Managers (83%) are keener than members (58%) in using informed levels to evaluate success.
48 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Current and ideal success measures
Number of residents who feel well informed as shown 36% by surveys 77% 46% Number of satisfied residents as shown by surveys 53%
23% Number of residents who feel the council gives good 44% value for money as shown by surveys 46% Number of positive news stories in local newspapers 43% 41% If the Audit Commission says communications are 26% doing well 18% If directors say communications are doing well 12% 18% If members say communications are doing well 10% Current
16% Ideal Other 18%
Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question 4/5: How do you think the success of communications is currently/should be measured at Southampton City Council?
When asked to describe an effective campaign one in six (17%) mentioned City View magazine. The remaining responses varied. When asked about the most ineffective campaign they have seen City View was also listed as one of the least effective campaigns, showing a clear divide in opinion.
Three in five, consider content in City View resident magazine (65%), InView staff magazine (63%) internal communications (62%), and design service (60%) to be good at Southampton City Council. At the other end of the scale nearly half (49%) think that intranet design is very poor and a further 26% quite poor. Intranet, website, media relations, proactive and strategic communications planning are all poorly rated.
49 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Effectiveness of communication Content in City View resident magazine 8% 48% 17%
Content in InView staff magazine 2% 8% 58% 4%
Internal communications 4% 17% 60% 2%
Design service 2% 11% 53% 6%
Event management 4% 13% 46% 6%
Reactive communications 2% 15% 34% 4%
Marketing campaigns 2% 15% 32%
Intranet content 35% 20% 24%
Website content 23% 21% 19% 4%
Media relations 17% 35% 21% 2%
Proactive communications 10% 35% 21% Very good
Website design 41% 24% 15% 2% Quite good Quite poor Strategic communications planning 13% 28% 17% Very poor Intranet design 49% 26% 4%
Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question 15: How would you rate the following for Southampton City Council overall?
Four in five (81%) feel the council does too little on website design and 76% feel too little is done proactive communications.
Council/department does too little… Proactive communications 67% 76% 60% Strategic communications planning 61% 64% Media relations 54% 73% Intranet content 53% 80% Website design 50% 45% Marketing campaigns 46% Website content 46% 62% Content in InView staff magazine 9% 33% 33% Internal communications 33% Content in CityView resident magazine 12% 29% 24% Event management 23% Council 15% Design service 21% Department Reactive communications 20% 23% Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question 11: Which, if any, of the following do you think Southampton City Council/You, as a department as a whole or as an elected member, does too little, about the right amount or too much of?
Half of the respondents (51%) feel proactive communications is most important for the council to improve. Similarly, half of respondents feel strategic communications planning and media relations (both 47%) should be improved.
50 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Most important for the Council to improve Top five
Proactive communications 51%
Media relations 47%
Strategic communications planning 47%
Website design 36%
Website content 32%
Source: 69 Southampton City Council members/managers, February 2009 Question 12: Which two or three, if any, of the following do you think is most important for the council to improve?
51 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Appendix C: Residents’ survey
Impact of stories
When analysing the effect news stories have had on resident’s views of the council, the story about the council providing value for money has the most significant positive impact followed by the story about how the council dealt with the disruption of the snowfall.
Impact of news stories: Council providing value for money All residents Heard story Agree Not heard story 35% Value for money 54% 30%
56% Satisfaction 71% 52%
23% Advocacy 38% 19%
Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
Impact of news stories: Dealing with the snowfall disruption All residents Heard story Agree Not heard story 35% Value for money 43% 31%
56% Satisfaction 65% 51%
23% Advocacy 32% 18%
Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
52 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
The story about Ikea opening, although heard by 86% of residents, has little positive impact if any on opinion of the council.
Impact of news stories: Ikea opening All residents Heard story Agree Not heard story 35% Value for money 35% 38%
56% Satisfaction 58% 45%
23% Advocacy 24% 19%
Source: 500 Southampton residents 16+, 19-26 February 2009
Only one in five (18%) residents think the media has covered Southampton City Council in a positive way. A quarter (25%) feel it has been viewed in a neutral way but nearly half (45%) feel the council has been portrayed in a negative light. The remaining 13% don’t know.
Those who think the media has viewed the council positively are likely to be satisfied with the council (74%), think the council is a strong leader in the local area (69%), feel well informed about services and benefits (65%), think the council provides good value for money (62%), speak highly of the council (42%) and think services have got better over the last 12 months (42%).
53 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Appendix D: Current structure of corporate communications team
Title band Salaries Head of communications team £105,550 including business support manager and admin assistant
Design and production team £207,075 including manager, senior designer and five designers, sponsorship officer
Publications and web officers £80,912
Communications team including 3 £122,997 officers and internal communications officer
Assistant head of communications £138,850 and media team including three officers
Total 22 staff £655,384 Total plus 20% on costs £786,460
Design and sponsorship income - £248,490
Total £537,970
Note; the Sponsorship and advertising officer not included as self-financing and two designers are part-time.
54 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Appendix E: new team structure and salaries
Title Proposed salary Head of communications £75,000 Admin officer £20,000 Research officer £30,000
Head of marketing £45,000 Marketing officer x 5 One per directorate, £150,000 running five campaigns each Internal comms officers x 2 £50,000 Production Editor £30,000 Production Assistant £20,000 Sponsorship officer £30,000
Head of Media £35,000 Media officers x 3 £75,000 Media assistant £20,000
Head of production and design £35,000 Senior designer £30,000 Designers x 4 £100,000
Total 26 £745,000 Total (plus 20% on costs) £894,000
Income from design team and - £230,000 sponsorship officer
Total £664,000
*Sponsorship officer and design team are self-financing
55 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
Appendix F: Example of a communications plan
Implemementati 10-15 tactics to deliver the message to the target audience on
Timeline Key milestones and public events
Evaluation Method of evaluating campaign Resources Corporate and departmental project budget Team Departmental lead officer and communications officers Cost centre Budget source AGREED Department
Communications Manager Head of Comms
56 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
APPENDIX G: PERFORMANCE REPORT
Summary
KEY INDICATORS Resident Informed rating Media score Value for Money Opportunity for involvement Reputation
CORPORATE SCORES Information (Resident, stakeholder and staff) Trust Advocacy Value for Money Opportunity for involvement Leadership Customer Service Overall satisfaction Information
INFORMATION SCORES Services and benefits (Resident) Involvement Delivering on promises Plans for the area Performance
MEDIA ANALYSIS Council analysis of cuts Media vs basket of councils Output figures
INTERNAL ENGAGEMENT Corporate information (Staff) Department information Understanding of corporate programme Corporate leadership Departmental leadership Campaigns
MARKETING IMPACT Recall of key publications Recall of campaigns
CAMPAIGN IMPACT FOUR STAR: High performing campaigns THREE STAR: On track campaigns TWO STAR: ‘In development’ campaigns ONE STAR: Stalled campaigns
CAMPAIGN EFFORT Allocated work vs actual effort (departments over serviced or underserviced) Overall Progress
57 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
REPUTATION RAG INFORMATION RAG CAMPAIGNS RAG BUDGET Position against budget
58 Delivering best in class communications for Southampton City Council - DRAFT
59