The role of public sector comms in creating community cohesion

In the wake of this year’s riots in Southport and across the UK, the phrase “community cohesion” can seem like a contradiction in terms. This Summer marked some of the worst incidents of violence in the UK in decades, coupled with an ongoing cost of living crisis and other significant social and healthcare crises. Sentiment is at an all-time low and the public sector faces a seemingly impossible task in rebuilding cohesive communities. 

It was therefore inspiring to hear from Lucy Downham (Head of Communications at Wigan Council) at our BIG Social 2024. Lucy and Michael Stringer (Assistant Director of Communities and Engagement at Surrey County Council) led an inspiring breakout session exploring the value of community engagement, with Lucy exploring the ways in which Wigan Council has recently prioritised collaborating with local people, embedding community into all of their plans. 

We’ve gathered some of the session’s key themes and insights in this article.

The UK is facing testing times, with an acute cost of living crisis in play, an ageing population, a new government and budget constraints for local authorities. Wigan Council is no exception, operating across a large geographic area with many communities facing distinct challenges.

Lucy explained that, when it comes to communicating with local residents, tensions can be high – especially on social media. In Lucy’s experience, honesty is always the best policy. When her team empathise with the concerns of local people, and are transparent in terms of the challenges and difficult decisions faced by the council, residents are more willing to collaborate to find solutions and this ultimately builds trust.

For some time now, Wigan Council has paved the way in terms of local authorities prioritising community feedback. The Council has over a decade of experience listening to residents, and working with them to co-create better services.

Wigan Council has also paved the way for nurturing a new kind of relationship with its residents, launching The Deal – an informal agreement created in 2014 between the council and its residents and businesses, as a response to significant budget cuts caused by the austerity crisis at that time. The deal was based on reciprocal pledges such as: “We will keep your council tax low – you will recycle more and recycle right”.

Although The Deal was well-received at the time, Lucy explained that it had been created by the council in haste by council teams at a high level, rather than in collaboration with local people. As a result, when Lucy’s team ran community groups to get feedback, residents reported that they viewed The Deal as a mere transaction. As part of The Big Listening Project in 2018, Council teams visited 75 locations across the borough and spoke to more than 2,500 local people to find out what they would like Wigan to look and feel like. Their feedback ranged from a more vibrant town centre to a better start in life for children and young people. The Deal 2030 therefore includes key strategic priorities that have been developed in collaboration with their communities.

At Wigan Council, Lucy and her teams recognise that the Council don’t ‘own’ Wigan – it belongs to the people that live there. The Council recently took a symbolic step in removing their coat of arms from the boundary sign on entering the town. She explained that Wigan Council has also moved away from using the term ‘Council Plan’, favouring ‘Place Plan’ as it belongs to local communities. They now make their plan in collaboration with hospitals, schools, local sports clubs and family hubs and the people that make Wigan the vibrant place it is.

Lucy described how this mindset applied to a recently proposed re-branding project. Her team agreed that deciding on a new identity for Wigan Council would mean that they were determining what progress for the borough should look like. They also felt like expensive re-branding work wouldn’t make the best use of funds that could be better deployed supporting communities. The re-branding activities were therefore focused on updating assets (e.g. staff lanyards) with their collaborative motto ‘Progress with unity’. They plan to roll this out to local NHS colleagues, to show that the entire public sector and its communities are working together towards the same goal.

Lucy explained that, working across geographically dispersed boroughs with their own nuances and challenges, her team needed on the ground insight to understand what was needed in each neighbourhood. She prioritised reaching out to influencers in each community, using social listening to pinpoint the prominent voices and themes. As of early 2024, data shows that there are approximately 56.2 million active social media users in the UK, representing 82.8% of the total population – social media listening is therefore an excellent, real-time way to uncover what most communities care deeply about.

Lucy also emphasised the importance of meeting face-to-face with their influencers, for example inviting them for a cup of coffee in the library. Now, the Council has a public stakeholder map so whenever they work on a new project, they immediately know with which groups of influencers they need to consult. The Council also works with community influencers on coproducing content, as community members feel more inclined to trust people like them – rather than a faceless government organisation.

In January 2024 NHS England launched NHS Talking Therapies, backed by famous faces, including TV presenter Matthew Johnson, influencer Rehana Yasmin and media medic Dr Zoe Williams, to encourage more people to get mental health support and get back into employment.

Wigan Council has identified certain core ingredients in order to foster community cohesion, such as “see the real person” and “listen to communities”. Listening also allows teams to keep a finger on the pulse in terms of communities’ concerns. Lucy recommended having a team member overview incoming messages on a daily basis in order to spot trends and wider issues. For example, Wigan’s Media Officers identified that some residents were misinformed about a specific development project, so Lucy was able to invite them for a chat before any rumours escalated.

However, Lucy explained that this work goes further than listening, also encompassing engagement. By hearing communities and engaging them in two-way conversation, both parties are able to understand each other’s position and come up with creative solutions to ongoing challenges.

During Michael’s introduction to the session, he mentioned that neither himself nor Lucy had one answer to building community cohesion – there is no silver bullet. However, through listening and engaging with communities, experimenting, and sharing with public sector comms colleagues through organisations such as LGComms, we can make real progress and create connected communities.