With more than 25 years’ experience spanning politics, local government and strategic communications, Mark Hawthorne brings a rare, insider perspective to the challenges councils and businesses face today.
Read on to hear from Mark as he reflects on how that experience shapes the work of JBP Local, why clarity and confidence matter more than ever in local government communications and how councils can cut through the noise to engage residents – and Whitehall – on what really matters.
- Your career spans both politics and strategic communications – how have your years in local government shaped your approach to leading JBP Local?
Local Government is a real passion of mine, and I’ve been fortunate enough to serve at the highest level both locally and nationally over a 25-year period. It’s given me a unique understanding about how the sector work and the challenges it faces.
It’s this experience, along with our Senior Counsel Network that mean we get the challenges and constraints of Local Government from day one. We understand the pressure that local government colleagues are under and we have first-hand experience in tackling some of those challenges from a communications point of view.
It also means that we are well placed to help clients navigate what can often be seen as a complex landscape – helping clients make the right connects for them and their business.
- When you took the helm of JBP Local, what gaps did you personally recognise from your time in politics that traditional communications or consultancy models weren’t addressing?
The biggest challenge in local government communications is often trying to say too much. The breadth of services that local government delivers is so wide, that often a council’s communication channel feels like a crowded room full of lots of people all shouting at the same time.
Too often local government also shies away from selling what it’s trying to achieve to residents and avoids conflict to the detriment of its reputation – with the overall outcoming being a communication strategy that informs but does not inspire.
Our experience at JBP Local is that councils must focus on the three or four messages that matter most to residents. That if they believe in the changes they are making, they need to sell them. And that’s where we come in. We can link into a council’s existing team and provide them with the extra capacity around campaign and project communications and really help that council engage with local residents on the issues that matter to them.
- JBP Local brings together people with extensive first-hand local government experience – how does that inform the advice you give clients engaging with local authorities?
Local government can seem a fairly complicated sector to outsiders. For a start, there is no uniformity currently on how local government is structured (though that is changing) and many businesses don’t have first-hand experience of navigating the political landscape.
That’s where JBP Local is at its best. Not only are we steeped in first hand experience of the sector both locally and nationally, but we’ve also got the politics covered with a network of Senior Counsel that represents all the national parties.
JBP local is the satnav of local government, ready to support clients of all sizes make the right connections to support their business growth.
- What are the biggest communication or engagement challenges you’re seeing local councils face right now?
When I first started out, it used to be the case that if you wanted your message to land with local residents, you needed to get the editor of your local newspaper on your side.
Well, those days are gone, and councils are increasingly having to rely on their own communication channels to get their message across, alongside positive coverage. And whilst that means that councils have more control over the message itself – sometimes councils struggle to broadcast beyond the placards, protesters and campaigners to a wider audience that is often switched off to what their council does.
Councils therefore need to be more focused on core messaging and long-term campaigns to cut through the noise and land their messages with the residents they actually want to communicate with.
- With devolution, planning reform and investment priorities all evolving, what’s your advice for local leaders wanting to get their message heard in Whitehall or Westminster?
Whether local government likes it or not, councils and places are competing against each other for the attention of Westminster and Treasury.
Too often in my 25 years I have seen councils with great business cases for government investment lose out to councils that are just better at selling their story.
With limited resources, Treasury in particular wants to invest in winners. Areas that speak with a unified voice and a clear ask. Every council has a compelling business case – but only winning councils can articulate it such a way that deliverers the funding.
At JBP Local, we have first-hand experience of landing the big investments with Treasury – we know what makes the difference, and how an upfront investment can pay back many times when you land the funding you need.
- Looking ahead, what’s next for JBP Local, and how do you see its role evolving as authorities face increasing pressure to deliver?
Many councils are understandably focused currently on the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) programme and how those changes will impact on them and their communities. It is, at the end of the day, the biggest shake-up for a generation.
However, alongside LGR the Government has recently passed the new planning bill which introduces Spatial Development Strategies (SDSs) – and more significantly the maps of the new SDS areas!
This is huge for local government and for the planning sector as a whole. It is a return to strategic planning in a way we’ve not seen for over 25 years. And yet there is a real sense that the sector hasn’t quite found the headspace to even start thinking about what this looks like.
That’s why JBP Local is already starting to pull together expert voices on SDS to get ready to help councils navigate this new world of strategic planning – and most importantly to help them understand how they need to communicate and engage with local residents on plans that will shape their communities for years to come.
To find out how JBP Local can help you, contact Mark.Hawthorne@jbp.co.uk