Partnership communications

Arc21 is a partnership of 11 local authorities in Northern Ireland centering around Belfast.  It was originally set up to source equipment and establish disposal routes for waste and recyclables collected by partner authorities. 

The partnership achieves significant benefits to individual authorities in all aspects of waste management.  It has for example awarded and is managing waste management contracts on behalf of member authorities to a value exceeding £200m.  This collective approach has resulted in savings of £7m.

The brief

Arc21 were keen to develop communications with householders that would have a common appearance and approach across the partnership area.

With the aim of rationalising all waste recycling and reduction communications a number of issues had to be addressed:

  • Agreement across the 11 authorities as to the extent of the collaboration
  • Development of communications plans and how these would be structured
  • Agreeing a common appearance to all communications materials

The solution

WRAP agreed to fund this exercise as part of their ROTATE support programme and commissioned Get it Sorted to carry out the work.

Following careful planning and coordination, the project started with an away day for the arc21 joint committee, council officers and arc21 staff to decide on the approach to be taken in developing a joint communications approach.  Following presentations of good practice in other partnership areas and a number of facilitated break-out sessions the group agreed the following overall objectives:

  1. Develop a communication plan for arc21 focusing on common elements such as waste minimisation and reuse; this would allow for single campaigns across the whole area rather than each authority having to develop their own.
  2. Develop communications plans for each local authority, focusing on their own specific collection services and the delivery of waste reduction campaigns developed by arc21 when appropriate.
  3. A common visual identity to be used across the partnership so that all promotional material had a common look and feel.  This would ensure that the service promotions would have the same appearance as the waste reduction promotions and that all outdoor advertising would link in with all printed material.

To achieve the first two objectives we held meetings with arc21 and the 11 authorities individually and agreed any service changes or promotions and how to integrate the local and regional communications plans. There was overwhelming agreement what communications should be carried out by the authorities and arc21. 

Communications plans were written for each local authority and arc21 following the WRAP communications planning format; comprising:

  • Background
  • Situational analysis
  • Aims and objectives
  • Target audience
  • Branding and Message
  • Strategy and communications methods
  • Communications activities
  • Schedule and budget
  • Evaluation

This allowed for communications, which identified how to achieve the operational objectives of each local authority and arc21 and provided a fully integrated plan with scheduled activities for an 18 month period.

To develop a common visual identity 3 concepts were developed and presented to the arc21 joint committee and officers. A preferred identity was chosen and identity guidelines were developed – these included service change promotional material for one local authority going through the process and waste reduction promotions for arc21 to follow at the appropriate time.

Conclusions

This was a lengthy and far reaching communications planning and identity development project. It has left the partnership with a common identity and a fully integrated communications planning framework which can be followed and modified easily as circumstances change.