When it comes to writing for local government, you face a number of challenges.
Your words must:
More often than not, you'll be expected to complete your writing within tight deadlines.
Local government writing workshop
Our Writing For Local Government workshop has been designed with these challenges in mind.
It introduces you to simple, but powerful techniques used by professional writers to create fit-for-purpose documents, under pressure.
This highly tailored course is presented by a professional copywriter with many years’ experience of training writers in local, regional and national government.
General or specific types of writing
It's ideal if you're looking for expert advice across a range of local government writing tasks.
Alternatively, if you're seeking guidance on a specific type of writing task - local government report writing, for example - we offer additional courses that might also be of interest.
More details about these can be found towards the foot of this page.
Key training objectives
Before our Writing For Local Government course takes place our tutor speaks to those attending and, where possible, to a line manager as well. This allows him to identify your key training objectives.
He will ask you about the kinds of writing you and your colleagues do, and where you feel the main difficulties lie. He will then design a course to match your requirements.
Depending on your needs, he can either focus on one or two types of writing, or provide guidance on several. Simply pick the areas most appropriate to you, and our tutor does the rest.
From reports to magazines
Recent courses he has run for local government employees have addressed a whole range of writing tasks. These include:
Constructive feedback on your work
One of the many attractions of this course is that it gives you the opportunity to get a professional critique of your writing.
Send our tutor examples of documents you have written and he will give you constructive feedback either during the course or afterwards by phone. He will point out the positive aspects of your writing, while suggesting areas where further improvement is possible.
Needless to say, any information you send him will be treated in strictest confidence and used only to support the training.
Practical writing tips for local government officers
Throughout the session, the emphasis will be on providing you and your colleagues with practical writing tips you can take away and start using immediately.
These will be backed up by skill-building exercises designed to reinforce the key principles of good local government writing.
By the end of the course you will be able to tackle your writing duties with greater skill and confidence.
What you gain
Each course varies according to the needs of those attending. However, a typical Writing For Local Government workshop will show you how to:
In addition, our tutor will advise you on how to:
Who should attend
Writing For Local Government can be run for groups of two to ten people. A one-to-one master class is also available.
The course is suitable for any local authority employee whose duties include writing paper-based documents or online content.
We particularly recommend it if:
Our prices
We can run this course for you at our South London training centre or at your offices, anywhere in the UK.
Our rates, without VAT, are:
| Number of people | Total cost | Cost per person |
| 4 to 8 | £720 | £90 to £180 |
| 9 | £765 | £85 |
| 10 | £800 | £80 |
| 11 | £825 | £75 |
| 12 | £840 | £70 |
Discount on future bookings
You may be interested to know that a 20 per cent discount is available on future bookings of this workshop.
It will be applied to any subsequent workshops you book, provided the gap between bookings is never more than six months. With our discount, the cost per person for 12 people works out at just £56.
Please note: for courses run at your offices, an additional fee may be charged to cover our trainer's travel expenses and, if necessary, overnight accommodation. Every effort will be made to keep these costs to an absolute minimum.
We also offer a two-day course on writing for local government. For more details please call the number below.
Additional training options for local government
We run a number of courses that have proved popular with those who work in local government.
If you need to raise the standard of report writing in your local authority or achieve greater consistency in your reports, we offer a tailored workshop that will help.
Take a look at: Report writing for local government.
Writing web content for young audiences
Many local authorities have a section on their website devoted to children and young people, or have created a separate site specifically for that audience.
If you currently provide such a service or are considering doing so, you might be interested in taking a look at: Writing web content for young people.
This course has already been successfully run at six local authorities.
Web writing for a general audience
Alternatively, if you feel your team could benefit from expert advice on how to write for a general web audience, please visit:
Website copywriting.
Other writing courses
For some of your colleagues, you may also want to consider:
Where we train
As a bespoke training provider based in the London Borough of Sutton we can run courses:
If you're looking to develop and improve your skills in writing for local government, call us today and we’ll talk you through the options.
And finally . . .
At the end of the Writing For Local Government course we will issue you with an official course certificate to confirm your participation.
Contact details
For more information on Writing For Local Government or to make a booking, please call: 020 8669 8730.
Or email: bruce@strawberrytraining.co.uk
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