Don’t bite the hand

NHS press officer PAUL ILETT worries that the service he provides to local papers could be jeopardised by probes into what it costs

OUR communications team works hard to keep the local press happy and I think we do a good job. We prioritise media enquiries and respond quickly and in as much detail as we can. We are extremely proactive with articles and news releases.

We provide a huge amount of material for the local press. Our local papers often have two or three page leads that have come from us, as well as full or double-page features. We even provide the pictures these days, saving them the hassle of sending along a photographer.

So I was disappointed when a local paper put in a freedom of information request asking for full details of our team’s pay and annual budget.

I appreciate it’s nothing personal — they are asking the same of our local councils, hospitals and police force — but I am concerned about how local people will react to the resulting story.

We don’t clean the streets, arrest criminals or save patients’ lives. It can be hard to explain to the public the importance of what a communications team does.

My concern is that many people will read the figures and immediately decide we are a waste of public money. But if they cut our spending those same people will be the first to complain when information on local services dries up.

The importance of good communications should never been underestimated. I spent six years as Head of Comms at MORI. MORI’s local government research showed that councils that invest in good communications have much better approval ratings than those that do not. The truth is that people like to know what is going on.

Local communities want to know how their taxes are spent, and how their local councils, police and NHS are performing. Every day they get this information from their local papers, which often get the information from us.

If public sector organisations were shamed into closing down their comms departments, the impact on local papers would be massive.

Gone would be the quick responses to media enquiries. Gone would be the steady stream of news releases, picture opportunities and features. Local reporters would find it very hard to fill their pages.

I understand that the public has a right to know this information. It is sad, however, that the request did not come from a member of the public, but from a local newspaper that lives on our work.