The Good Communication Awards took place on 14 July at the Emirates Stadium and recognised the public sector’s efforts towards effective and diverse communication with its citizens and workforce. Former newspaper editor Eve Pollard presented the awards after a glittering drinks reception and four course dinner.
The Government Communicator of the Year, sponsored by Best Companies, was Tina Chawner from HMRC. Tina Chawner became Head of HMRC’s IT Communications in 2008, at an early stage in her career. Dealing with controversial and sensitive campaigns, she has tirelessly directed her teams across disciplines towards encouraging senior leaders to accept their responsibilities as communicators, and driving a move to a more open culture. Prior to her appointment, the 1,300 people working in the IT department felt there were too many channels, that messages were inconsistent and had a low opinion of leadership communications. Within 12 months Tina made huge progress resolving these issues by centralising the communications resource to form a small, professionally trained team. In October 2010 Tina’s role expanded to encompass all departmental communication about change as part of the biggest Change Programme in HMRC’s history.
MULTIPLE SUCCESS FOR DERBYSHIRE
Derbyshire County Council celebrated triple success, scooping the Local Authority Of The Year Award, sponsored by 2e2, Council Publication Of The Year, sponsored by Big Green Book, and Contact Centre of the Year Award, sponsored by Genesys.
The Council’s b-line Youth Magazine won the prize for Council Publication of the Year. Expanding on its existing young persons’ travel and discount card (b_line), the complimentary magazine features real-life stories about issues such as drugs, alcohol, domestic violence, eating disorders and problems with body image. These are backed up by non-judgemental contributions from local experts. The result is a publication that wouldn’t look out of place on a newsagent’s shelf.
The Council’s Call Derbyshire service won the Contact Centre of the Year Award. It deals with over 300 council services and is now the first point of contact for all new social care referrals. In 2010 the centre responded to 563,000 phone calls and 36,000 e-mails, texts and contact forms. Despite periods of severe weather which led to an increase in call volume, the centre maintained business continuity thanks to staff working longer hours. Call Derbyshire, an established 24/7 service, is playing a major role in how it provides residents with a central point of contact and integrated service for the vulnerable.
DOUBLE SUCCESS FOR DWP
The Department for Work and Pensions’ Personal Data Campaign scooped the Internal Communications Award and the Strategic Communications Campaign, sponsored by Callcredit Information Group.
Following high profile data losses across government, DWP developed a successful character driven campaign to build staff awareness and essentially change their data security behaviours. Campaign branded messages featured across a mix of channels including a takeover of the DWP intranet homepage.
DWP created a visually engaging ‘I’ graphic character, personifying individual responsibility with its ‘I will do my bit’ tagline. A series of 90 second videos illustrated real-life scenarios, with volunteers selected through a ‘have you got the i-factor?’ competition. Staff inclusion ensured the films remained credible, and significantly reduced costs.
The campaign exceeded all expectations reporting 96 per cent staff awareness of information security.
Alice Gledhill, Internal Comms Manager for Campaigns and Products at DWP Internal Communications, said: “To win the first award was a great achievement but when our work was awarded the ‘Strategic Communications’ award too it was an amazing feeling. To have our hard work and successful campaign recognised by your peers is a fantastic feeling.”
PRINT INNOVATIONS
The Council Publication Award for Journalism, sponsored by Argent Media, went to East Riding of Yorkshire Council for Your East Riding.
Given the decline in newspaper circulation figures and the fact that councils are now restricted to producing quarterly publications, up to 12 of the 32 pages of Your East Riding are localised to six defined areas of the East Riding. Residents feature heavily and there is a good mix of stories from across the council. Localised pages give local ward members a voice and visibility and events specific to that area are also highlighted. Members of the communications team write all the editorial in-house.
Ealing Council’s publication Around Ealing scooped the Council Publication Award for Design, sponsored by Argent Media.
Around Ealing is a completely refreshed publication, with a switch to a more compact, handbag-sized format (245mm x 190mm) and a change to 100 per cent recycled paper, meeting the council’s drive for sustainability. The new format allows for more two-page feature spreads, improving the look and flow of the editorial. It has also allowed a larger pagination (48pp minimum) by balancing the weight ratio for distribution costs and has also meant a lower page rate for advertisers, which has encouraged sales. By clever use of column grids and a minor reduction in point size, the word count was hardly compromised.
The Print Innovation Award, sponsored by Argent Media went to the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) guide ‘staying legal materials.’
The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) has, for many years produced material aimed at operators for dissemination to their drivers. Research has shown that while operators want to read all the information that will affect their business, drivers just want to find out what they need to know in order to comply. VOSA’s design team developed an A3 folded pocket guide which focused on diagrams rather than words, and can be used by non English speaking drivers and those with lower levels of literacy. Printed on durable paper, the folded format mean that a driver can carry it in their cab. The pocket guide has been distributed to over 50,000 drivers in four months, with very positive feedback from industry in the UK and across the EU.
PR CATEGORIES
Stockport Council won the award for Local Authority PR Team Of The Year, sponsored by Amaryllis.
At Stockport, research has become a priority for every area of activity. All campaigns are aligned to the strategic objectives of the council, with the impact carefully monitored to evaluate success. The Stockport team committed to delivering no-nonsense campaigns that cut through the jargon. The Stockport Boost campaign looked at ways to tackle the recession, providing businesses and residents with advice and support on how to cope during the year ahead. It surpassed all of its objectives, generating over 100 weeks of coverage in the Stockport Times and £20 million in benefits for Stockport residents.
The Mixed Media Campaign Award, sponsored by Daryl Willcox Publishing was awarded to the Christie NHS Foundation Trust for its Treatment Centre Campaign.
In November 2010, the Christie opened a £35 million patient treatment centre. The opening campaign, at a cost of £12,000, maximised publicity and was split into different sections. These covered pre-publicity, a preview tour week, media activity and post-publicity, and included the use of TV, radio and print, social media, leaflets, newsletters, films, celebrity and VIP visits and preview tours. Media coverage achieved had an advertising value of £750,000 which was all positive.
The Government To Citizen Communication Award, sponsored by ProtoCall One, went to Durham County Council for its Safeguarding Adults Campaign.
The ‘See it, Report it’ campaign was developed to create a greater public understanding of vulnerable people who are neglected, abused or taken advantage of. The two-week campaign featured stories based on real-life experiences, directing people to a newly-created regional website (www.safeguardingadultsne.com) and designated 0844 number to report abuse. Funded externally by the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (RIEP), the campaign highlights the benefits of partnership working.
TELECOMS AWARD
The Mobile Technology Award, sponsored by Box Technologies, was taken home by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council for its SARAH Mobile working initiative.
SARAH was developed in an inclusive manner led by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council in partnership with CACI and in consultation with home carers, unions and IT staff to design a product that would allow the removal of paper timesheets. The homecare management software solution is deployed on smart phones allowing carers to download their specific service user schedules whilst also providing them with contextual information and prompts for each visit. As changes occur, these can be relayed immediately to the carer and vice versa.
The Contact Centre Technology Award, sponsored by Clement Clarke Communications, went to South Staffordshire Council.
The dilemma for South Staffordshire Council was how to improve the service by using technology whilst not increasing cost. The decision was made to develop an in-house customer queuing and handling system. Whilst the council does not employ any developers, existing internal, home grown skills were utilised. A technical assistant whose main responsibilities are hardware and systems support used his self developed skills to write a software system to support customer queuing and handling. The assistant went through the entire software development lifecycle. Not only did the system improve upon the previous software that was running but it also saved the council a considerable amount of money in licensing and maintenance costs.
Surrey County Council was awarded the Contact Centre Training Award. In 2010 Surrey County Council developed its ‘Delivering the Customer Promise’ training, which is in the process of being rolled out across the organisation. So far 209 have attended the course and delegates have rated the course highly. The training is interactive and focuses on the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills of customer service - managing customer expectations, how to design and deliver customer-driven rather than governance-driven processes, and how to empower and encourage teams to deliver excellent customer service.
Raising awareness on how slicker, bureaucracy free processes can enhance customer service has resulted in savings of over £500,000 across the organisation. There has been a significant reduction in ‘chaser’ calls and cost per contact has reduced to 79p to 49p.
The Telecoms Innovation Award, sponsored by MLL Telecom, went to Kent County Council for its use of audio conferencing.
Innovation and digital technology plays a key role in the way the Kent County Council delivers services and in supporting its people to work more flexibly. In order to reduce travel-related costs and lower its carbon emission, it has recently implemented BT MeetMe, a hosted audio conferencing service that only requires a fixed or mobile phone for access, enabling virtual meetings with up to 40 participants. No prior booking is required and conferences can be established in the time it takes to dial the local access number.
IT AND E-GOVERNMENT AWARDS
The IT Partnership Award, sponsored by EfficientIP, was taken home by the Department for Education for its Employee Authentication Service (EAS).
The EAS was created to provide a sector-wide solution to enable employees to securely access multiple children’s services and educational information sharing systems using a single token. It provides a strong authentication solution for central and local government employees to enable them to securely access multiple government applications and systems by using a single token. EAS was designed as a shared service to be used across government where ever secure authentication was needed with the capacity to handle two million concurrent users. Currently three major government led services are engaged in trialling and rolling out the service with a combined user base of between 75,000–100,000 users in addition to a number of smaller scale services already using the service. The project was developed as a strategic partnership between DfE, DWP and DCLG, in collaboration with local authorities and other partners.
Wycombe District Council scooped the Website Accessibility Award, sponsored by DSPG. The Council’s website was designed to maximise the opportunity for members of the public to self-serve their differing needs through an accessible channel. Wycombe and site developers VLI have been working with the Digital Accessibility Centre to ensure the website works for everyone. The Digital Accessibility Centre accreditation means that the site has been tested by people with a wide range of disabilities and found to be accessible.
The Government Website Of The Year, sponsored by Eduserv was taken home by Lincolnshire County Council. New web features include tabs and mega drop downs to show the main elements of the site without having to navigate away from the homepage, resulting in improved usability. Other features include enhanced map based tools make finding services in Lincolnshire easier than ever before. This project has also made it possible for the council to share its CMS with district councils.
The IT Project Innovation Award, sponsored by Info Exchange, was won by London Borough of Redbridge. YouChoose is an online budget simulator developed by Redbridge that encourages members of the public to consider where council budget cuts should fall, where efficiencies might be made and where income might be generated. The tool helps councils to engage their citizens in decisions about how they spend their revenue budgets and helps citizens to understand the tough choices faced by their council.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.gcawards.co.uk
