Public Relations and
Derbyshire County Council
Rod Cook FCIPR
Director of Communications
Derbyshire County Council
rod.cook@derbyshire.gov.uk
The Derbyshire View
 Derbyshire County Council
 Our PR Team
 What the team says
 Case Study - Fostering
 Questions
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
It’s big business
 £1.1 billion budget
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Children
Adult social services
Roads
Public transport
Rubbish disposal
Libraries
£680m
£270m
£62m
£26m
£27m
£18m
 Public relations budget of £2.5 million
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
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.
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.
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
Communications – Areas Of Activity
 Media relations
 Corporate publications
 Corporate publicity campaigns
 Online and social media
 Crisis communications
 Event management
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!
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
Award Winning Team 2012
 Team of 29 communications staff
 Journalists, marketing and PR graduates
 Web ‘techies’
Award Winning Team 2012
 They are all:
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Excellent writers
Understand news
Understand people and audiences
Creative thinkers
Have good ‘people skills’
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”
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”
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”
Producing an Award Winning Campaign
 Research
 Set campaign objectives and desired outcomes
 Agree strategy
 Deliver campaign
 Monitor and evaluate
Fostering Campaign
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Public Relations and
Derbyshire County Council
Rod Cook FCIPR
Director of Communications
Derbyshire County Council
rod.cook@derbyshire.gov.uk