Agenda item

To approve the minutes of the last meeting of the General Purposes Committee of Aldermen held on 11 July 2023.

The Committee considered the minutes of the last meeting of the General Purposes Committee of Aldermen held on 11 July 2023.

RESOLVED: - That the minutes of the last meeting of the General Purposes Committee of Aldermen held on 11 July 2023 be approved as an accurate record of the meeting.

Chairman’s Welcome

The Chairman, on behalf of the Committee, welcomed the City Corporation’s Executive Director of Corporate Communications and External Affairs, Emily Tofield, to her first meeting of the General Purposes Committee of Aldermen.

Ms Tofield took the opportunity to briefly introduce herself and spoke of her background before joining the City Corporation. She went on to reflect on her first three months in post and the challenges facing the organisation as a whole in terms of communications, the desire to be able to tell a ‘collective story’ in a more strategic way and the need to adapt to a more digitally focused approach. Ms Tofield went on to speak of forthcoming engagement sessions that she intended to schedule in order to better understand the thoughts and needs of all including the Court of Aldermen.

The Chair welcomed any immediate questions which the Committee may have of the new Director. He began by speaking on the importance of social media and underlined the need for guidance to Members on this. Ms Tofield stated that she had been trying to get a sense of what the organisation currently did across its various digital platforms and channels and recognised that there was a whole piece of work pertaining to protocols and guidance which needed to be put in place across the board. She recognised the importance of the digital space for the organisation in terms of engaging with its stakeholders and growing its audiences and therefore the importance of all utilising this in an efficient and responsible manner.

An Alderman highlighted the current lack of a Communications Strategy, something which he was keen to see addressed with a future paper to the Policy and Resources Committee but which he also felt could helpfully come to this Committee for information given the way in which communications had appeared high on the collective agenda of the Court of Aldermen at its recent strategy day. He went on to state that the organisation spoke often of its USP as being the international promotion of Financial and Professional Services of the City of London and not just being a Local Authority yet the Corporate website did not tell this story and was also extremely difficult to navigate. He suggested that it could be hugely simplified by, for example, three separate pathways presented on the initial landing page headed ‘Local Services’, ‘Financial and Professional Services’ and ‘Other’. The new Director agreed with the points made. She stated that the organisation actually had more than one website and was, in some way, competing with itself to reach the same audiences both internationally and domestically in this respect. She also expressed the desire for those accessing the website in the future to be able to locate what they needed with just a few clicks. She reiterated her desire to address all of these matters via structure, funding and strategy and recognised that there was much to be done.

Another Alderman queried whether the new Director had a feel for who was a good working example in terms of large, complicated, multi-faceted organisations such as the City of London Corporation. The Director reported that she had been looking outside of the organisation at examples of best practice in the digital arena and assured the Committee that it was not impossible to achieve this for the organisation despite its uniqueness given that there were other, not dissimilar, organisations doing so very successfully.

An Alderman questioned the totality of resources available to the Director to help deliver on this work. The Director responded to state that she had also conducted a review of this and would now be coming forward with some recommendations as to how an essential, enabling structure that was alive to what the organisation was trying to achieve in the most effective and efficient way could be created.  

Another Alderman referred to the recent decision to stop the production of Ward newsletters as it was perceived that these were ineffective in terms of communications to electors in the City. He questioned whether this type of direct communication to electors would form part of the Director’s remit as there would appear to now be a significant opportunity for the Comms Team to help craft this type of communication with individual Wards then putting their own spin on things. Ms Tofield responded in the affirmative, recognising that City electors were a key audience for the City Corporation. She confirmed that new, physical, newsletters with input from Members would be issued in the coming months and that this would be overseen by a newly appointed Resident’s Engagement & Communications Manager – a post recently recruited to in order to reinforce the importance of this audience. She added that there would also be more work undertaken in future to increase the volume and quality of these types of communications whilst ensuring value for money. In response to a further question, Ms Tofield recognised that communications to residents and workers needed to be considered separately and that both would form part of a future Communications Strategy to ensure an effective and coordinated approach.

Another Alderman mentioned the Livery Companies of the City of London and queried to what extent they would be included within any future Communications Strategy. The Director reiterated that any Strategy was still at the earliest stages but that she was keen to engage senior Livery members in its formation. She had also begun to look at how the organisation communicated with the Livery more generally so that this audience might also be better mapped out and engaged with going forward.