Upside of council cuts

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: While, as previously reported, Communities Minister Eric Pickles’s mega cuts in local government expenditure will almost definitely result in head count reductions in council communication teams across the country as well as a cut back on agency expenditure in the short term, some reckon the cuts could actually result in new opportunities for communications consultancies in the medium to long term. The optimism is based on the fact that other government initiatives will need more communications expertise, and with in-house teams stripped back councils will rely even more on agency support.

Bottle PR director Carole Scott shared her optimism with PR Week this week. She said: “If ‘The Big Society’ is to take shape, then local authorities will need to develop effective communications. So the cuts are likely to affect PR agencies in two ways. Money for projects and campaigns run by agencies will probably disappear quickly. But in the medium term we could see reduced in-house teams turning to agencies to deliver core programmes that in the past would have been handled by their own staff”.

Posted Tuesday December 14 2010 by Chris Cooke