EB Parish Council Communications – Review Plan

MB and NR, 01.09.2025

Introduction
All organisations can benefit from regular reviews of communication.
Communications include: How we communicate within our organisation (internal comms); How
we communicate with people and organisations outside our own organisation (external comms)
and how we encourage those people and organisations to communicate with us.
This short paper sets out what we need to think about to effectively review our comunications.

Goals
We need to be clear on what we are trying to achieve?
For example, our goal might be to better inform residents and other stakeholders (other
organisations, businesses etc) which in turn would lead to more trust and engagement.
In addition we might also want to target specific groups – eg families, or new residents.

Assessment of our current communication methods and style
1. Internal communications: We need to ask if all available information that can be shared
within our organisation – is currently being effectively shared. And if not – what do we
need to do to improve that? Good external comms depend on good internal comms.
2. External communications: To communicate with residents we currently have the
following: our website, 400 words/month in the parish magazine (currently not always
using all 12 months), the parish council noticeboard, and our social media (Facebook,
Instagram, Google Business – run by our media consultant). Plus – personal interaction
from 13 councillors and council staff. We need to ask if we are maximising the potential
of each of these. We need to try and find out what channels of communication residents
and other stakeholders prefer. And then we need to decide if we need additional
channels. We need to bear in mind available time/money for all of this.
We also need to look at how we communicate with other stakeholders – village
organisations, businesses etc. What improvements could be made in this area?
3. Two-way communication: Are we doing everything we can to encourage
people/organisations in the village to communicate/engage with us.

Audience
A starting point for good external communication is to be clear about your audience/s – who they
are, how they like to receive information etc.

Content/style
To engage and inform our audiences – we need to think about what we are saying and how we
say it. This is harder than it sounds. Simple jargon-free language is just the starting point.

Evaluation
We’ll need to think of a way of evaluating the effectiveness of any new comms plan.