Writing For
Local Government:
a tailored, one-day course

When it comes to writing for local government, you face a number of challenges.

Your words must:

• convey key messages clearly and effectively
• address sometimes complex political issues with sensitivity
• connect with a variety of audiences, including local residents, local businesses and council staff.

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 copy, 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.

Key training objectives
Before the training our tutor speaks to those attending and, where possible, to a line manager as well to identify key training objectives.

He will ask you about the kind 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 just one type of writing or provide guidance on several. Simply pick the writing tasks most appropriate to you, and our tutor does the rest.

From reports to magazines
Recent courses he has run for local government employees have looked at diverse topics, including how to write effective:

• reports
• proposals
• letters and emails
• website and intranet content
• articles
• case studies
• press releases
• leaflets and brochures
• newsletters and magazines.

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 trainer 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:

• plan and structure your writing
• adopt the right tone
• come straight to the point
• make your text flow more smoothly
• write persuasively and with authority
• capture your reader’s attention and hold it
• breathe life into less than inspiring subjects
• communicate complex ideas clearly and concisely.

In addition, our tutor will advise you on how to:

• adapt your material to suit both your audience and your medium
• handle bad news or controversial issues sensitively
• boost readability through layout and typography
• write longer documents with confidence
• speed up the writing process
• find that elusive word or phrase quickly and easily
• avoid common government writing blunders.

Who should attend
Writing For Local Government can be run for groups of two to eight 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:

• you are new to local government writing and are looking for top tips and best practices to get you off to a flying start

• you are a local government officer who has recently taken on extra writing duties and would appreciate advice on how to speed things up without compromising quality

• you are used to writing paper-based documents but now need guidance on how to write for the web or intranet

• you already have experience as a local government writer but feel there’s room to improve and would like to take your writing to the next level.

Our prices
All prices for our Writing For Local Government courses exclude VAT. We offer two main options:

• a one-to-one master class - £540
• group bookings for two to eight people – see table below.

Group bookings, for this local government training course, either at your place of work or at our South London training centre, are charged at these rates:

If you'd like us to run Writing For Local Government outside the London area, an additional fee may be charged to cover our tutor's travel expenses and, if necessary, overnight accommodation.

We also offer a two-day course on writing for local government. For more details please call the number below.

Where we train
As a bespoke training provider based in the London Borough of Sutton we can run courses:

• at our Surrey training centre - in Carshalton, just 30 minutes from central London
• at your offices - anywhere in the United Kingdom.

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.

Contact details
For more information on our Writing For Local Government course or to make a booking, please call: 020 8773 4718.

You can also email: margaret.boulton@strawberrytraining.co.uk

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Useful links
In 2009 council leaders in the UK urged public bodies to ditch jargon when communicating with the public. If you write for local government, here are 200 words or phrases to avoid.

Are you looking for information about working in this sector? A good resource to consult is the LGcareers.com website.

If you are new to this sector and would like to learn more about the UK's local authorities, check out these Wikipedia pages on local government in:

• England
• Scotland
• Wales
• Northern Ireland.