Agenda item

To follow.

Resolved: that the Committee would refer its views to Mayor and Cabinet as follows:

•      The Committee recommends that Mayor and Cabinet tasks officers with developing a forceful communications campaign that focuses on the use of hoardings and billboards in innovative, large and visually captivating ways in order to reach Lewisham residents with messages about the budget.

•      The Committee also recommends officers should also be tasked with considering options for the use of data about Lewisham households to target the Council’s communications about its budget.

5.1      Joe Dromey (Cabinet Member for Policy and Performance) introduced the report, the following key points were noted:

·         The report set out the key messages, key audiences and key communications channels the Council was using to communicate with residents.

·         Communication with residents was increasingly important because, whilst people knew that austerity was an issue, there was concern about increases in council tax combined with a reduction in the level of services.

·         One of the key messages the Council attempted to get across was that Lewisham was particularly susceptible to reductions in government grant and that’s why it had been hit particularly hard by the years of austerity since 2010.

·         It was predicted that there would be a 63% decline in government grant from 2010 to 2020.

·         Another key communications message was that the Council had already made significant savings and that in doing so it had attempted to protect the frontline and the most vulnerable.

·         However, it was also noted that in the next two years the Council needed to make £32m of savings, which meant there would be more difficult decisions to make.

·         There were attempts to ensure that the communications message remained positive – in terms of the services that were still being provided and work that was still being carried out (such as the implementation of the London Living Wage).

·         There were three principal audiences for communications messages: all council tax payers, Lewisham Council staff and, in the case of specific saving proposals, those service users who were affected by the changes.

·         Lewisham Life was a key communication channel. The Council was also increasing its efforts to interact with residents through social media. In the past, council tax letters were an effective way to communicate with residents.

·         Officers also used local meetings and local media to communicate with residents. However, it was recognised that the readership of local papers was very low.

·         Staff and councillors could also help to communicate key messages.

·         The new Head of Communications had been in place for six months. He brought a great deal of public sector experience to the role.

·         The communications team were working to improve message discipline. It was recognised that the key messages had to be regularly repeated in order for people to become aware of them.

5.2      Joe Dromey responded to questions from the Committee. The following key points were noted:

·         There might be options to run an engagement exercise (similar to the big budget challenge) in the future.

·         Major engagement activities were labour intensive and the communications team was much smaller than it had been.

·         There would be a change of administration in May, which might change the approach to communications.

·         He would discuss the options for using advertising opportunities to convey key budgets messages (on billboards, hoardings and on vehicles) with officers.

·         There had to be a consistent message about the impact of austerity on the provision of Council services.

5.3       In the committee’s discussions, the following points were also noted:

·         Infographics might be a useful way of communicating messages to residents.

·         One option for communicating the impact of austerity might be to describe what sorts of services the Council would still be able to offer if its level of funding had remained consistent over the past decade.

·         There was lots of data available to buy from organisations that collected information about households. The Council could consider using this to target communication messages.

·         The notice boards at the front of the Town Hall could be used to provide information to residents

5.4      Resolved: that the Committee would refer its views to Mayor and Cabinet as follows:

·         The Committee recommends that Mayor and Cabinet tasks officers with developing a forceful communications campaign that focuses on the use of hoardings and billboards in innovative, large and visually captivating ways in order to reach Lewisham residents with messages about the budget.

·         The Committee also recommends officers should also be tasked with considering options for the use of data about Lewisham households to target the Council’s communications about its budget.