CorpComms Magazine

Giles Roca dislikes the term 'thinking outside the box' and yet that is what Essex County Council, where he is head of communications, is constantly doing.

Two years ago the council, which already provides 800 different services to its 1.6 million residents, decided to fight back against the proposed closure of 31 post offices by Post Office Limited.

'Our residents didn't want the post offices to close,' explains Roca. 'And as a council we said Let's do something about it. Yes, saving post offices was outside our usual remit but we are very comfortable about doing that.'

More recently, the council announced plans to establish the Bank of Essex, with backing from Spain's Banco Santander, owner of high street brands Abbey and Alliance & Leicester.

The bank will provide financial support for small and medium sized local businesses, offering loans of up to £50,000. 'The TSB was set up by Birmingham council,' says Roca. 'We are showing that there is a different way to deliver local government services. We are committed to looking at ways to make a difference to Essex and the quality of life of its residents.

'Essex has an entrepreneurial spirit. The council has also got great leadership. Ten years ago, we wouldn't have looked at banks or post offices. But today we are absolutely clear that we will look at ways of doing things differently. Everyone is encouraged to pitch in with ideas. Nothing is shot down. We have the backing of locally elected politicians, who know far more about what our residents want than a central government.'

More than services

Roca believes that Essex is one of a new breed of local authorities that recognise it is not enough to provide traditional services, such as refuse collections and local libraries, but that councils need also to consider economic development and the welfare of the community. 'We have a responsibility to make the whole place better,' adds Roca.

The Essex Post Office Initiative, which won CorpComms best communications by a public sector organisation award last year, fought to change government policy to allow third party organisations to run post offices. It galvanised support from 13 local MPs, gained local and regional media coverage and even launched a Facebook group to highlight the issue. The council set aside a rescue package worth £1.5 million. 'A post office is more than a shop,' says Roca. 'It's a community centre where customers can gather and chat. We looked at the bigger picture. This was a social service.'

Last September, Station Way Post Office in Buckhurst Hill near Epping was the first to re-open for business under the initiative. But it is now more than just a post office. Essex County Council has also puts its services into the branch. Customers can buy parking permits, apply for blue badges or pay fines. 'It is a community information spot,' says Roca. 'The police also hold surgeries in the post office. It brings all the public sector services together in a single accessible way. We have developed a new model and increased footfall.'

Essex County Council has already signed legal agreements to take over and open a further seven post offices by the summer. 'It takes time,' concedes Roca. 'We needed to sort out the financial plan to avoid breaking state aid rules.'

There is obviously the lingering concern that, if Post Office Limited could not make these branches profitable, what hope has a local council without experience in running such businesses. Roca dismisses such doubts. 'Part of the issue was that Post Office Limited had huge overheads associated with a national branch network,' he explains. 'If you take away the national overheads, it is possible to run these businesses profitably.'

About 200 other local authorities have since approached Essex County Council to look at its blueprint for saving post offices. 'It is a model that can be taken off the shelf,' says Roca, who is surprised that none of them have yet followed Essex's lead.

Banking on Essex

The council has put up £50 million for its banking joint venture. 'Santander [which is also putting up £50 million] is providing all the back office functions and the capabilities. We are simply lending on the basis of their risk analysis,' adds Roca. 'We've got the money sitting on deposit in our account earning zero per cent, so we looked at a way to help the community and make a better return. We kept hearing that viable businesses were struggling to access funding to keep them going. If it is good for them, then it is good for us. They will employ people and buy other services. It is also good PR to help out local communities.' Several local authorities are now in talks with Santander to develop similar services.

Both initiatives drew heavily on Roca's public affairs capabilities. 'I have a lobbying background, and as a communications department we're very strong on public affairs. A huge amount of work went on behind the scenes meeting MPs and civil servants to get support for our Post Office Initiative,' he explains. 'We now want to look at making our services available to other local authorities. We can devise lobbying campaigns for them and work on specific projects.' Roca does not see any conflict in offering his team's services elsewhere. 'We will be sensible about this. We will avoid anything that might conflict or embarrass us. We would never take on anything that would bring us into conflict with our council. But this a way to generate and keep money in the public sector.'

Keeping the talk

For now, however, Roca's team's current project is to catalogue and record examples of local dialect. He adds: 'We are doing a bit of work identifying Essex accents and dialect, many of which existed in rural communities. But they are dying out and being replaced by Estuary accents.'

Wirral-born Roca adds: 'The stereotype of Essex people is 20 years out of date. We can laugh at ourselves. It gives us a USP that makes us stand out. But 75 per cent of Essex is rural. It has beautiful countryside and a spectacular coastline. It is my job to sell that. It dates back 2,000 years to Saxon times, and until 1964 its boundaries stretched as far as Liverpool Street. Stratford was once in Essex, and I have heard one MP describe the London Olympics as the Essex Olympics.' Even for Essex County Council, that might be one challenge too far. 

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