1. Case Study Six: South Somerset District Council, Aug 2004 – Jan 2006
Issue/Challenge: Shortly after joining South Somerset District Council as Communication
Manager with a remit to build a Communication team, the authority appointed a new Chief
Executive. He quickly identified the need for a new website at the start of a process to
develop a Communication Strategy as part of an emerging new Corporate Plan.
Process: The challenge was effectively split into two tasks. Commissioning a new website
only six months after the council’s IT department had already overhauled the site and
aligning this into a communication strategy being developed in a vacuum without definite
Corporate Plan objectives. In order to avoid resistance by IT Colin enlisted the support of the
Procurement Department to form a commissioning team and stressed the importance and
need of their expertise to the Head of IT. A project plan for the commissioning process was
then drawn up but with one eye on the process and the resultant web site being part of the
communication project planning for the new Corporate Plan. The importance of Branding
and Tone of Voice were closely integrated at an early stage to ensure continuity with
emerging concepts for sub-brands and strategies for departments in the Corporate Plan. As
details of that plan emerged, Colin ensured that he was heavily involved in working with the
Chief Executive to take control of the Corporate Plan document so that its content and tone
aligned itself to the web site and helped shape the structure and content of the
Communication Strategy. When it came to producing the Corporate Plan document, instead
of outsourcing the process, Colin took a very ‘hands-on’ approach and worked with a local
design studio, writing all of the content himself to produce the final plan.
Result: The website was successfully commissioned on schedule, although more work was
needed on the intranet. As part of this process a new Webmaster was appointed but that
position sat in Communications and not IT. The Corporate Plan was also successfully
launched and the groundwork committed to that project helped to shape the emerging
Communication Strategy which was far more accessible to management due to the
communication involvement in the process from the outset.
Communication and Engagement