Bristol City Council Worries About ‘Negative Reputation’ Online
Worrying about what people say on social media, has become a part of Cabinet decision making, according to a withdrawn report released in August which mistakenly contained PR advice.
An Education Capital Update and Capital Investment Decision, had been scheduled to be on Cabinet’s August agenda, but was withdrawn days before the meeting.
The agenda item was to approve the spend of the capital grant from the Department of Education (DFE) to create more mainstream and Special Education Needs and Disabilities (Send) school places amidst a shortage crisis in Bristol.
Papers were re-submitted for the same agenda item for the September meeting, but there were changes to their contents.
The August Decision Pathway Report contained advice from a Newsdesk Supervisor dated 14 June 2022 and covering concerns about how to handle ‘external commentators’.
The report said: ‘Whilst this report puts forward a positive story about the council investing capital funds to deliver much needed capacity within the SEND sector, it is often the case that the reaction to such proposals is mixed. This should not deter BCC from proactively sharing this news ahead of the Cabinet decision in August and we’d recommend taking a positive stance on talking about the amount being invested and the impact it will deliver. Preparations can be made to put reactive lines in place to respond to likely counter’s from external commentators and we’d recommend ensuring a comprehensive stakeholder comms plan is in place to cover individual projects and ensure those impacted are fully aware of the proposed investments.’
This section was removed from the Decision Pathway Report for the September meeting, despite most other things remaining.
In response to our question regarding this, Mayor Marvin Rees said: This section formed part of the internal commentary between officers and was never intended to be part of the finalised formal report.’
The One-Page Business Case included with both the withdrawn and presented agenda items, also shows council worries around its reputation when it comes to a lack of specialist school places.
When we asked Rees how the council scaled their ‘negative reputation’ and monitored, collected, stored and shared this data, Rees said: ‘The council does not have a scale to measure ‘negative reputation’ and does not collect or monitor this.’
However, back in 2019 and through early 2020, Bristol journalist Jo Booth uncovered a £90,000 three year contract between Bristol City Council and Impact Social Ltd to do exactly this.
The final monitoring report from Impact Social in March 2021, showed that Send was listed as a ‘negative narrative’ on social media that month.
And was further scaled into a Negative Discussion chart.
During the summer of 2022 and continuing into the autumn, allegations of spying on the lives of Bristol Send families by Bristol City Council officers continues to be of pressing concern. Conservative councillors in Bristol have brought a motion to Full Council on Tuesday 18 October 2022, calling upon Rees to agree to hold a genuinely independent inquiry.
The meeting can be watched in person at City Hall or live online: https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=142&MId=10465
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