Public Relations and Derbyshire County Council Rod Cook FCIPR Director of Communications

1. Public Relations and Derbyshire County Council Rod Cook FCIPR Director of Communications Derbyshire County Council rod.cook@derbyshire.gov.uk

2. The Derbyshire View • Derbyshire County Council • Our PR Team • What the team says • Case Study - Fostering • Questions

3. Derbyshire County Council • 750,000 residents • 330,000 households • 36,000 employees • 64 councillors • Managed by a council cabinet of councillors and team of chief officers

4. It’s big business • £1.1 billion budget • Children £680m • Adult social services £270m • Roads £62m • Public transport £26m • Rubbish disposal £27m • Libraries £18m • Public relations budget of £2.5 million

5. It’s All About People • Support 419 schools. • Run 54 children’s centres and supports 145 day nurseries. • Support 425 foster carers, runs nine children’s homes and seven family support centres. • Help more than 35,000 vulnerable and older people to live at home. Support over 3,500 people in residential care. • Assist 1,850 people to arrange their own services through Direct Payments

6. It’s All About People • Maintain 3,285 miles of roads, 1,082 bridges, 3,216 miles of public rights of way and over 89,000 street lights. • Grit 1,500 miles of roads. • Run 45 branch libraries, 11 mobile libraries, 1 museum and a record office and local studies library. • Manage 5 country parks and 13 nature reserves.

7. It’s All About People • Dispose of around 349,000 tonnes of rubbish a year - 43.3% is recycled. • Provide 233 school crossing patrols. • Provide over 3,000 businesses with trading standards advice and support each year. • Million page downloads and 150,000 unique visitors to our website every month. • Respond to approximately 400 emergency incidents each year.

8. Communications – Key Functions • Promote and publicise the council’s policies, services and achievements internally as well as externally • Advise council and chief officers on communications • Manage crisis communications • Build a positive council reputation

9. Communications – Areas Of Activity • Media relations • Corporate publications • Corporate publicity campaigns • Online and social media • Crisis communications • Event management

10. Communications – Areas Of Activity • Improve life for local people • Use PR to deliver business objectives • Use PR to add value and deliver savings • Have ‘Big’ ideas – integrated multi channel campaigns • Radical thinking • Ethical PR – We are the conscience of the organisation • We solve communications problems • Have fun!

11. Award Winning Team 2012 • Winners of 7 Campaign awards • Winners of 2 Silver Awards • Winners of 3 Highly Commended Awards • Six Best PR Team Awards • PRCA Public Sector In-house Team of the Year, 2011 and 2012 • Finalists 21 times • Over 100 PR awards in last 10 years

12. Award Winning Team 2012 • Team of 29 communications staff • Journalists, marketing and PR graduates • Web ‘techies’

13. Award Winning Team 2012 • They are all: • Excellent writers • Understand news • Understand people and audiences • Creative thinkers • Have good ‘people skills’

14. What do they like about working in In-house PR? • “I enjoy the variety and seeing the positive effects on people’s everyday lives” • “Working with a dedicated team who want to get things right” • “The people and the variety” • “I love using different writing styles. There’s always something new to spread the word about” • “Having a new idea and being told to run with it” • “Every day is different and rewarding”

15. What’s most frustrating? • “Projects don’t sometimes progress as quickly as I’d like” • “People who choose not to take PR advice because it’s not what they want to hear” • “Trying to counter people’s negative attitudes about public services” • “Vanity publishing” • “People who tell us how to do our job”

16. What’s advice would you give ? • “If you haven’t got a sense of humour, get one” • “Keep an open mind. Media is constantly evolving and so should you” • “Think digital. It’s an essential tool” • “Get some PR experience to see if you like it, and if you do, go for it!” • “Invest time in managing relationships as well as projects” • “Work to continuously improve your writing”

17. Producing an Award Winning Campaign • Research • Set campaign objectives and desired outcomes • Agree strategy • Deliver campaign • Monitor and evaluate

18. Fostering Campaign

19. Fostering Campaign - Research • We were short of at least 80 additional carers • Spending £3.3 m a year on expensive foster care from independent providers • Children were being placed be a long way away from their home area • Less cash for preventative services which could stop children entering the care system in the first place. • Independent placements cost £33,000 a year more than our own foster carers.

20. Fostering Campaign - Objectives • Provide local homes for local kids • Increase enquiries and expressions of interest from prospective Derbyshire carers. • To make Derbyshire County Council the first and most popular choice for prospective carers. • To improve the image and reputation of the county council as a provider of care for children.

21. Fostering Campaign - Strategy • Modernise outdated and poorly targeted print adverts • Place a new emphasis on fostering as a professional career • Introduce a faster, friendlier and more efficient way of handling enquiries • Develop a multi-media campaign to deliver key messages • Carefully targeted television advertising was cost effective and reach our key audiences

22. Fostering Campaign - Delivery • Print adverts – for use in local newspapers and key council corporate publications • TV advertising – two 30 second commercials based on simple fostering stories • Radio Advertising - we produced two 30 second and one 10 second adverts. • Media relations - a series of news and feature articles were issued to prolong the exposure of the campaign.

23. Fostering Campaign - Delivery • Posters – our print adverts were shaped into posters for display in libraries, GP surgeries, children’s centres • Flyers – a series of flyers to promote the different fostering options – teenagers, disabled youngsters and family groups • Digital and social media – promotion on our main website, jobs website and social media • Simplified phone applications with social workers follow-up contact within five working days.

24. Fostering Campaign – Evaluation • We increased the level of enquiries to our contact centre from a few a week to an average of 60 a month • As a direct result of the campaign we recruited 40 new foster carers – 40 new local homes for local kids • Saved the council up to £1.32m on our private fostering bill. • We needed to recruit just four new foster carers to cover campaign costs of £110k

25. Public Relations and Derbyshire County Council Rod Cook FCIPR Director of Communications Derbyshire County Council rod.cook@derbyshire.gov.uk