Agenda item

Purpose: To provide the Overview and Scrutiny Management Commission with an update on progress made on the implementation of the Communications and Engagement Strategy, which was adopted in October 2020.

The Commission considered a report on the Operational Review of the Communications and Engagement Strategy (Agenda Item 7).

Before introducing the report, Councillor Lynne Doherty expressed her concern at the behaviour Members had shown in the previous item. She indicated that the work of the Commission was valuable to the Council and she welcomed scrutiny of the Executive’s decisions.

Councillor Doherty stated that the Strategy had been approved in October 2020 and that it had since been successfully implemented. In 2019, a Peer Review had recommended that the Council was “hiding its light under a bushel” and communications needed to be improved. Since then the Council had gone on to receive awards for its communications. She was proud of the team and noted that many residents had given unsolicited compliments on the Council’s communications.

Gabrielle Mancini introduced the report. She explained that effective communication and engagement was key to being open and transparent and involving the community in the work of the Council and the democratic process. The Communications Strategy and Delivery Plan to address points raised in the peer review, and set out a comprehensive range of actions. Additional investment had been made in the Communications Team, which had also been restructured. Significant progress had been made in a short period. This had coincided with the Covid pandemic, when effective communications had been of increased importance. Feedback and awards had demonstrated how much the Council had improved, with benefits for the Council and the communities it served. It was acknowledged that more needed to be done to reach those who were seldom heard, but there was confidence that the Council would continue to move forward.

Councillor Lee Dillon indicated that it would be good to understand the level of resource and spend required to deliver each of the outstanding actions. For example, improving the website would be a relatively large and costly exercise compared to other more minor actions. Similarly for partially complete items, it was difficult to understand the remaining commitment. Also, he felt that some actions were not specific enough (e.g. ‘greater social media’).

Councillor Claire Rowles congratulated officers on making so much progress in a short period. She indicated that there had been good engagement with the Residents’ Bulletin on Covid. She noted that the branding exercise had not been progressed and asked if this remained a long-term ambition. She also asked about plans to engage better with people with disabilities.

Councillor James Cole agreed that good progress had been made, but highlighted issues with the search engine on the Council’s website.

Councillor Tony Linden was pleased at the improvements made. He agreed about the limitations of the search engine and noted that it had been difficult to find the last election results. He stressed the importance of making articles easy to read, including for residents whose first language was not English, and engaging with people who were not digital natives.

Councillor Tony Vickers suggested that when the Council organised conferences and events, there was a risk of talking too much and not listening enough. He stressed that residents had a lot to offer and should be listened to. Also, the Council was able to impart information in other ways.

Councillor Adrian Abbs suggested that relatively few people subscribed to the Council’s social media channels, but engaged with their own community groups. He suggested that the Council and Members could post / re-post to the most active local groups in order to increase the audience.

Councillor Steve Masters congratulated officers on the improved communications. He acknowledged the success of the newsletter, but noted that engagement on social media was less than it could be. He suggested that the Council could pay for social media advertising to get into the feeds of local residents. With regard to live-streaming Council meetings, he asked if British Sign Language interpretation could be used to improve accessibility.

The Chairman also congratulated officers and praised the report. He agreed that the website needed to be improved, since this was often the first point of call for residents. He highlighted that his Council laptop was using Explorer as the default browser, but this did not work with the Council’s website or intranet.

Gabrielle Mancini responded to members concerns as follows:

·         Necessary resources had been made available for all actions.

·         Progress was regularly monitored by the Customer First Programme Board.

·         Weighting of actions had not been considered to date, but this would be looked at - projects were currently progressed in priority order.

·         It was recognised that updating the website was a big project.

·         Concerns about the search engine would be fed back to the Digital Team.

·         The website performed well in terms of Government accessibility standards.

·         The Council was improving access for residents by increasing the range of channels through which people could engage, including directly through the Contact Centre or via digital channels. The Digital Waste Permit Scheme was cited as a success story with residents able to access other services via their online account in future.

·         Engagement with seldom heard groups was considered a priority and additional resource had been added to the Consultation Team to facilitate active engagement with these communities.

·         The demographics of social media subscribers and consultation respondees were regularly reviewed and any gaps were actively targeted. Also the Residents’ Survey was going out to a representative sample of local residents.

·         The Branding exercise had been deferred due to budget and resource constraints associated with the pandemic.

·         Regarding conferences, the Council was seeking to move from the traditional approach of broadcasting messages to a more collaborative approach that involved others in the setting of agendas. An ‘un-conference’ approach would be used for the forthcoming District Parish Conference.

·         Engaging with individual groups on social media would lead to a huge call on staff resources and it was suggested that Members and other community leaders could help to spread key messages.

·         The Council made good use of paid advertising on social media, which targeted those who were not currently engaging with the Council.

·         British Sign Language for council meetings had not been considered to date, but this would be discussed with the Portfolio Holder.

·         Explorer was no longer supported by Microsoft, so ICT would be asked to remove this from Members’ laptops. Members would be able to access the Intranet via Chrome.

Actions: Gabrielle Mancini to:

·         Consider introducing a weighting of actions by resource / time requirement;

·         Feedback concerns about the search engine on the Council’s website to the Digital Team;

·         Discuss the possibility of British Sign Language interpretation for public meetings with the Executive Portfolio Holder;

·         Ask the ICT Team to remove Explorer from Members’ laptops.