An important politician, up for election, rings to ask if you could send across that picture you took of them at the launch of the new play equipment.
You’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the image will go into her campaign leaflet. So you ask what the picture will be used for. If it is for a leaflet you don’t send it. It was taken using public resources so shouldn’t be used for political campaigning.
But how do you say no constructively?
Take it from me, unless you have chapter and verse in front of you that conversation is going to be a little bit tricky. At best, you are going to look a bit evasive and unhelpful. At worst, you are going to look uninformed, and when the politician complains there may be more pressure on you to do the wrong thing.
In an ideal world, every elected member knows what they can and can’t expect you do and wouldn’t dream of leaning on you to bend the rules. But, of course, we aren’t in an ideal world.
In my experience, every local authority has at least one elected member who will try and push the rules. Especially with junior members of staff. And every authority has at least one elected member who will spot what you’ve done and attempt to nail you to the floor.
Communications teams can often be accused of being political mouthpieces, mainly by people who don’t understand the role they do. Don’t let them. But to do that successfully you’ll need to know very clearly what you can and cannot do as an official, whether you work for a council, central government, the police, fire services or national parks.
There is some groundwork to be done. You’ll need to read through several key documents, five of which are outlined below. Cut and paste the passages that govern what you can and cannot do for elected members. Do not paraphrase. It is far more effective to read back the page, paragraph and chapter and verse. Make sure everyone on your team knows it, has a copy and has access to it.
Media protocols
Every communications unit needs a media and publicity protocols document, which sets out what it does for elected members. It also sets out when and where the comms team gets involved.
Normally, this will be agreed between the head of comms, the chief executive and the council leader. It does change and may be updated two or three times a year. This an important document but it is not the best one in your armoury.
Council publicity code
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has issued eight pages of guidance on what councils should and should not do. In England, the guidance from 2011 can be found here (pdf). You may want to cite one of the key principles of the guidance that it is even-handed, for example. For Scotland and Wales the guidance dates back, amazingly, to 1988. You can find it here (pdf).
If you work in a local government comms team you should know your guidance backwards. It’ll also give you some good ground rules on what you can and can’t do.
Your authority’s constitution
Politicians may be able to debate an authority’s media protocols; they could decide to defy the DCLG code. But the local constitution has a power over politicians that is practically unmatched. These are the day-to-day rules that govern local politicians, so give them close attention: they will include rules about publicity, about the relationship between staff and elected members and probably some safeguards against undue pressure.
Professional codes of conduct
Professional codes can provide help and support. The National Union of Journalists’ code applies to comms people just as much as reporters and one very useful line to note is that members should strive “to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair”.
Comms professionals can also drawn on the Chartered Institute of Public Relations code of conduct (pdf).
Purdah guidance
The Local Government Association has written some excellent purdah guidance for 2016 which you can see here (pdf).
On comms2point0, we also have guidance on purdah and social media and you can read that here. If you work in central government, look out for Cabinet Office guidance that will be published ahead of elections.
There’s some legwork involved here. Yes, I know you’re busy. But this could save your skin in the long run.
Once you’ve pulled things together, publish it on your web pages and make it public. Let the leaders of each group know the contents on the internal guidance too so they can’t pretend to be in the dark.
This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on comms2point0
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