Some of our team recently headed down to Bristol to attend the LGcomms Academy as a sponsor. It was a fantastic event full of learning, networking and meeting new people (not to mention a bit of karaoke).

It was a busy couple of days for the team; our Head of Marketing, Helena Hornby, sat on the panel during a session about impactful marketing partnerships and how the comms teams of the future could be as effective possible. She also ran the Unconference session – back by popular demand for a second year.

Our Content Marketing Manager, Hannah Hill, lead a session on how to benchmark effectively for strategic impact. Shannon Sweeney, Jordan Smith and Adam Turner made loads of new public sector friends as well answering many different questions from many different comms pros.

However, the main thing the team took away was just how much they learnt about local government communications, so what better way to celebrate a fabulous couple of days, than to share for some of them to share their favourite learnings? Over to you, team!

It was a pleasure to run the Unconference at Academy again this year and was one of those sessions that reminds you why this community is so special. The Unconference only works when everyone shares ideas on what they’d like to discuss so it was brilliant to see so many people pitching ideas and shaping the agenda together.

The result? Conversations that were refreshingly honest, thought-provoking, and packed with practical takeaways. There was plenty of conversation, inspiration, but also a sense of shared experience. A bit of group therapy, even!

That spirit of openness and collaboration ran through the whole event. I loved the honesty of Dawn Carter-McDonald, Chief Executive of Hackney, sharing her life story so honestly, it was so inspiring.

It was also great to hear about the importance of letting your communities and residents talk about what they want to talk about and how crucial it is to listen to them and make that the heart of your messaging. Georgia Turner suggested making it about them, not you. Shayoni Lynn also gave some great advice on tackling misinformation by telling stories that resonate with people through emotion, not just the facts. People follow the engaging narrative, not necessarily the truth! Build informed communities who are ‘prebunked’ don’t just debunk.

Something else that I’ve always valued about this sector is the appetite to connect, reflect and support one another, which was something that really came through in Bristol. Whether it was in sessions, over the lovely food at lunch, or just quick conversations between the formal agenda, it was really lovely to see. Although I no longer work directly in local government, I still feel part of the community and very connected. Events like this help me stay close to the challenges comms teams are navigating, and keep my own thinking sharp and relevant. I like to be curious, and the communicators in the room certainly were, too!

The world doesn’t stand still, and neither can we. Listening to peers, learning from what’s working (and what’s not), and sharing what we’ve learned is how we move forward, together.

I really enjoyed my first time at the LGcomms academy and found the session on local government reorganisation with Jonathan Carr-West, Simon Jones, Peter Elliot, Georgia Turner and Abbey Cortazzi particularly interesting. Working at Orlo means constantly trying to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers, so, as LGR is such a hot topic at the moment, this one really stuck with me.

One of the main points I took away from this session was that local governments are trying to work out if their communities actually care about LGR, and if they do, what they really think. According to some stats presented in this session, only 30% of communities actually follow developments with LGR. So that begs the question, how can comms teams make LGR relevant to their communities so they can in turn understand how this will impact them?

Abbey explained that at Surrey County Council, they’ve been seeing quite a lot of success with simple explainer videos and have done a lot of work with young people to make their messaging as accessible and as relatable as possible. Georgia also explained the importance of storytelling when creating content around LGR; the more teams can engage their citizens by using stories about their communities, the better.

Another interesting point came from Peter from Somerset Council, who mentioned that it’s important for local government comms professionals to continue to develop in different areas as part of their work. It was mentioned that there is quite a lot of concern amongst staff across local government around job security in the face of LGR. Peter explained that encouraging teams to develop their skills and turn their hand to a variety of tasks can help with staff retention as it helps to show that there is a place for them within the organisation and can even showcase different opportunities. In turn, this improves wellbeing by mitigating some of those job security concerns.

It was a great session full of practical advice and tips, but it was also a session full of empathy. It was nice to hear from experts who made it clear that those struggling with LGR alongside the day to day roles are not alone.

Shayoni Lynn led a presentation on misinformation which I found especially interesting as she mentioned that around 75% of people do not trust their local government to act in the public’s best interest. There was also a lot about how misinformation can be prevented focusing on prevention vs intervention.

The key points were diagnosing a negative situation early, interpreting signals to discover what exactly is being said, assessing spillovers, and then mitigating proactively and intentionally. I found the psychological angle of this fascinating, as humans tend to believe what they want to believe, not necessarily what is true; for example the rumour that we supposedly eat eight spiders a year in our sleep, although why anyone would want to believe that is beyond me!

Another interesting part was the difference between disinformation and misinformation. Shayoni explained that disinformation is the deliberate spreading of false information and misinformation is accidentally spreading information you believed to be true. All in, it was a great session and helped me gain a better understanding of how local government organisations may struggle with misinformation and got me thinking about how we can help to mitigate that.

• Bridge the engagement gap: Focus messaging on why LGR matters to residents. How it affects families, communities, and services. Use real-life examples and human stories, not just political statements.
• Share comms from officers, not just councillors: Keep it less political and more relatable.
• Misinformation is a business risk and comms are the frontline: Be proactive. Keep residents warned, informed, and reassured. It spreads through beliefs, not facts alone. Tackle it with relatable stories and emotional messages. Track patterns across channels, including spillover from national to local.
• To enhance survey responses be clear and honest about how public input shapes decisions and what influence the public will truly have. Use stories to show real impact.
• Focus on what matters to people: Make comms relevant to their daily lives and priorities.
• Benchmarking: benchmarking means what good looks like compared to an industry standard at the highest level. Benchmark yourself against similar organisations and if possible, drill down into specific campaigns or messaging type for a fairer comparison.