Public Sector: The Public Sector Week

PR Week UK, Friday, 19 February 2010, 12:00am,

Westminster City Council director of comms Alex Aiken writes in this week's column about preparing public sector PR for the downturn. For the full column, go to prweek.com/uk.

LG Communications and the Local Government Association are jointly holding two briefings explaining how to deal with the issue of purdah in the run-up to the local and general elections. They will take place in London on 23 February and Birmingham on 26 February.

Kent County Council has axed its council-run web TV service to save money. Kent TV was launched in September 2007 at a cost of £1.4m, but costs £600,000 each year to run.

BCS Public Relations is to promote the National Apprenticeship Service across the East Midlands. The campaign is part of a nationwide comms programme aimed at raising awareness of the business benefits of taking on apprentices and showing young people that apprenticeships are a viable alternative to pure academic study.

Porter Novelli has been awarded a place on the Buying Solutions roster of firms providing marketing comms services to the public sector, as part of a joint bid with Quadrant Consultants.