Councillor Morris Bright MBE Brief summary of portfolios key areas - PDF document

10/15/2018 What’s happening within the Communications and Consultation portfolio? Overview of presentation: Councillor Morris Bright MBE • Brief summary of portfolio’s key areas of responsibility Portfolio Holder for Communications • Consultation and gauging public opinions and Consultation • Web and digital development September 2018 • Brief overview of publicity campaigns Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council The Corporate Communications team About the portfolio… External comms Press releases, campaigns, photocalls Respond to press and film enquiries • Corporate Comms forms part of the Partnerships & Monitor media coverage Community Engagement service area • Function is overseen by Communications & Consultation Portfolio Holder • Revenue budget is £74,900 • 0.63% of council’s overall revenue budget Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council About the portfolio… Building our e-community Hertsmere News: ‘News for you’ is a FREE e-alert service for people to subscribe to specific topic areas to receive regular email updates, which are linked to our social media channels. We currently have 8,230 subscribers and, under new data protection regulations, Corps Comms regularly issues reminders about our privacy statement and how they can unsubscribe. Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council 1

10/15/2018 Consultation Consultation Significant communications push surrounding the Local Plan ‘issues and options’ consultation phase last autumn. Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council Web development Residents’ survey • Improving our web-site, more • Corp Comms oversaw our customer focused, easier three- yearly residents’ survey – transactions conducted independently for us by Opinion Research • Yiota Chysanthou, Web and Services Digital Officer, started in April • 1,000 residents – results on an 18 month project generally showed we were comparing well with councils nationally Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council First 3-6 months of project Website testing panel • Agreeing aims of project • Ensuring our website development is driven by customer need - so we’ve been seeking views • Analysing current position and performance • We have recruited a panel of residents, staff and • Online and face to face surveys to understand what councillors to test new web pages and features as they customers are looking for develop (please join the panel!) • Accessibility improvements for blind and visually • Successful promotion of the website testing panel has impaired users led to 70 volunteers joining to date • Starting to work through service areas – in order of • The first task was sent to the panel in August to help user popularity determine the structure and categories of the waste and recycling pages Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council 2

10/15/2018 Next steps Challenges Concentrate on one service at a time: • Start with Waste & Recycling • Bushey Country Club closure • Use the customer feedback we already have • Traveller incursions • Putting up around five or six surveys to find out what customers need • Talk with the service to see what they think they need • Financial challenges • Liaise with content editors to make sure their pages meet the customer needs better • Local Plan and public concerns about perceived over development Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council Future campaigns: Abuse of staff Future campaigns: Abuse of staff It’s not part of the job • Staff within Waste and Street Scene, • Staff focused Housing Services, Customer Services and Parking Services Team are most • The Hub for staff to report incidents, update of likely to suffer abusive behaviour. policies and procedures, support and advice. • We have been working with departments from across the council No excuse for abuse to address this behaviour and send a • Explain what we’re responsible for clear message that it won’t be tolerated. • Key facts, statistics from service areas • Show the human side of our staff Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council Recent campaign: ParksHerts Recent campaign: S.C.R.A.P #TryANewParksHerts • Continuing to promote key messages around flytipping • Ran throughout July in partnership with HCC’s Year of Physical Activity. • Countywide S.C.R.A.P campaign • Daily social media messages to highlight co-ordinated by Hertfordshire a different park. Flytipping group • Pages views to ParksHerts increased by 141% • We continue to publicise key • 38.9k tweet impressions (up from 8,962 court cases to act as a deterrent in June) • Facebook reach 10,807 (up from 5,542) Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council 3

10/15/2018 Digital engagement – our growing e- community 6,259 Twitter followers Any questions? 1,999 Facebook page likes 277 Instagram followers Hertsmere Borough Council Hertsmere Borough Council 4