Non-job of the week
Jan 2012 25

Non-job of the week8

If you have ever wondered what some people do in council communications departments, here is a an example. Waverley Borough Council is looking for a new Strategic Director, and the beginning of the following job advert has certainly been written by someone with a creative imagination:

Could you weave gold into our services?

We don’t really expect you to possess the skills of a tailor. But if you have the gold thread needed to connect our services and communities, you could be ideal for this role.


Talking about communications departments, Islington Borough Council is searching for an Interim Head of Communications, paying £62,460 – £66,366 per annum. If Islington is anything like some of the councils I deal with, they should rename the post as Head of Miscommunication, as there are times when getting a straight answer to a straight question is virtually impossible.

Of course councils need communications officers, and therefore someone to manage them. To justify the salary on offer, the Head of Communications must be managing a fairly large team, and that raises questions in itself, but when you read the following in the job description, you begin to wonder what messages we are paying for:

The council is focused on making Islington fairer by reducing the gap between rich and poor and making a difference to the lives of those in our community who most need our help

The council is there to provide the services we pay our council tax for, therefore those in the community who require the most help should be helped. We do not pay our council tax so the council can try to reduce the gap between rich and poor. That is overtly political, and has nothing to do with its primary purpose. It seems as if Islington regards itself as the North London equivalent of Robin Hood, although it may find that if it tries to steal from the rich to give to the poor, many of them will up sticks and move to another area where the council does not adopt such a policy.

We’ve had Future Shape Programme Managers; Business Improvement Managers; Change Programme Managers. This week Merton Borough Council wants Business Improvement Advisors. Paying between £38,070-£40,716, the council is looking for an unspecified number of these advisors to ‘change the way it operates, leading to a leaner and more efficient organisation by 2015.’

What a pity those in charge didn’t think the council should have been  leaner and more efficient in the first place. With many senior officers receiving generous salaries and pension benefits, they should have been been seeking ways to make sure the ship was sailing in the most efficient way possible. It shouldn’t take reduced funding from central government grants to get them to start thinking of ways of saving taxpayers’ money.

Councils are supposed to be the most efficient part of government. It does make you worry just how bad the rest are!

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  • Head of Miscommunication

    What a strange article. First you imply that nobody knows what communications people do, then you give an example of some work that may well not have come out of the communications department. Have you worked in an organisation (private or public) of reasonable size? If so, you will know that job ads aren’t invariably written by the in-house communications team; they are often written by the HR team or an external recruitment agency. Actually, the language in the advert seems to me to be too flowery to have come from someone who writes for a living. Why don’t you contact the council and ask who wrote it? That sounds like it would be actual investigation rather than random mud-slinging.

    • Anonymous

      You forget though a business needs to promote itself to get customers. Without communication or marketing no one will buy their products.

      A council has a fixed customer base that is forced to pay for services – whether it wants them or not. Customers cannot choose another provider nor is the price set amongst competitors. The only communication a council need do then is by action, not waffling adverts, brochures or leaflets.

      • https://about.me/polleetickle Polleetickle

        dearest bubbles15, a council is not, never likely, to be a business on very many levels. a council has a defined list of subscribers to its services so marketing adds diddly squat. a council should be making itself more efficient in all manners to welcome its fixed audience.

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  • CURMUDGEON

    Sounds like you’ve touched a nerve with ‘Head of Miscommunication’
    -could be you’ve flushed out the author!

    • Head of Miscommunication

      Ha ha! Not guilty!

  • http://www.problemsatwork.org/ Charlotte Coupe

    Hope there is no suggestion that HR professionals are ‘flowery’ – as a Senior HR professional of 30 years, I’d be very happy to address the colossal wastage in the Public Sector generally – give me a month and I could save a fortune, without cutting services!  Contact me at [email protected] if you need ‘non flowery’ HR advice and guidance in your organisation!

  • https://about.me/polleetickle Polleetickle

    the public sector have lost the plot – meaningless waste, extravagances, frivolities and non-jobs all over the place. Cut it out and let the government maintain welfare for the deserving. #mhuk #spartacusreport #WRB