Communicating is vital in era of police cutbacks

Communications is a fluffy-sounding term, the idea of 27 staff employed conjuring images of an office populated by the cast of BBC Two’s satire W1A.

Set at the BBC’s London headquarters, job titles include director of better and head of values.

“Blue sky thinking” abounds in this (only just) fictional environment, and endless strategic meetings must be held in order to conclude that without the presence of these “key” individuals, nothing would be possible.

The balance between spending money on communicating and actually doing it is of course a tricky one and is an issue I often come up against as a journalist.

Public officials wonder why they are struggling to engage with target audiences – yet are unwilling to pay people to promote their work and realise their objectives.

The news comes at a time when police budgets are currently being stretched like never before.

Frontline staff have been cut, and over the next five years Sussex Police must save a colossal £57 million.

They will be shedding 1,000 jobs in total in the process.

If the police do not have the resources to tackle crime, maintain an on-street presence in neighbourhoods, and inspire public confidence, then what good can a 27-strong office-based communications team do?

Well, actually, at a time when the police force is making cuts like never before, a strong communications and PR team is not a luxury, but a necessity.

The most obvious example of this is to support operational policing.

Appeals for information or witnesses or warnings to avoid particular areas or individuals are now commonplace in the press and social media.

With resources stretched, putting out information to the public is key in order that the police are not called when another agency would better be able to deal with the situation.

Encouraging individual and collective responsibility within communities could also in turn reduce the burden on the police force.

This is the era of information after all.

The people demand transparency and answers at the press of a button.

There is nothing more likely to inspire anger and resentment than the perception, whether justified or not, that there has been a cover-up.

So here again resources need to be put into opening clear channels of communication and facilitating public engagement, whether it is dealing with requests from the media, or enabling the public to access information through social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter, or access services online.

The ability to report a crime online, for example, saves time and resources from the point of view of both the person reporting and the police.

Everyone will be familiar with police campaigns and, again, for these to be effective, a properly resourced communications department is key, one where there is plenty of innovation and people qualified to look for new ways of doing more with less.

Knowledge is power, and if the communities served by Sussex Police have all the information at their fingertips in terms of services available online, what they can expect from neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers, and also the ability to interact and provide intelligence where necessary, then it follows that such communities will be better served by the police.

There is a valid argument that too much focus on PR rather than practicalities of policing could lead to resources being wasted, but the focus should not be on the figure, but rather on allocating this amount in the most efficient way.

The corporate communications and public engagement department will of course also be making cuts in the coming years along with the rest of the force.

Yes £1 million a year is a considerable sum, but communications in the context of policing means much more than just sending out press releases to the media.

It stands to reason that the work of police communications departments will continue to be a key element of modern policing.

This is especially so as technology opens up new possibilities.