Public sector

Devolution, and how local government should communicate it, is still attracting a lot of attention. So what should you do? And how difficult is the task? Excellent articles by @darrencaveney and @interimboy (£) on the communications challenges facing local government communicators, and by @simonfparker on current progress on devolution, show there are many […]

Today’s decision to leave the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act mostly as it is should be welcomed. Perhaps not enthusiastically by some, but the good parts of FoI far outweigh the bad. Public bodies should be open with the people who fund them, be they individuals, businesses, or the media. […]

What does devolution mean, and what does it mean for communicators? A couple of weeks ago I had a call from a local government journalist about this, and there was a session on devolution at last week’s Public Sector Communications Academy #CommsAcad. And this morning BBC News ran a piece […]

Shouting and laughing at the same time is difficult, but not impossible. There’s been a lot of noise over the past few days about the nature and number of communications roles in local government. Newspapers, journals, politicians, trade associations, consumer groups (I use the term very loosely) and bloggers have all had […]

Do the public care about cuts to local government and other public services? If not, why not? And if they don’t, what are local government leaders going to say and do about it? This month has seen both the Autumn Statement and, more recently, initial details of the financial settlement […]

Edifying is the last word you would use to describe the launch of Damian McBride’s book this week to tie in with the Labour Party conference. Shameless would be a good word, along with many others, to describe the round of interviews he’s participated in to make himself some money. […]