Unconfirmed rumours reach me that Cheryl Curling, head of communications has been summarily escorted from Brent Civic Centre. Two days ago PR Weekly LINK carried the story that she had been made redundant as part of the council's restructuring that will increase staff from 9 to 11 and with a new head on a higher pay grade than Curling. PR Weekly noted that Cheryl had not responded to a request for a comment at the time of going to press.
PR Weekly stated:
PR Weekly stated:
Curling’s role as head of comms and marketing is set to be replaced by the wider ranging and higher salaried role of head of media and external relations, with the post currently being advertised.Not very good public relations really...
Brent Council’s interim senior comms adviser Richard Stokoe, hired last year as part of the review, said the restructure would see a shift in focus towards making the council’s 2,500 staff its spokespeople.
"The most trusted form of comms is verbal, and the most trusted form of verbal comms is from friends and relatives, so this is about getting staff out there. If you have each member of staff talking to five people about the council and what it's doing, you can start to bring about big behaviour change."
Alongside a change in the top role, the comms officer roles will be changed to media officers, while new corporate comms officers will oversee longer-term strategy and the training of staff as spokespeople.