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I'm using my column this month to tell a story. It's a story of determination, of keeping a dream alive, and ultimately, of success.
A worsening financial crisis, growing distrust of politicians, concern over a scarcity of natural resources and the rapidly evolving nature of technology are just some factors reshaping society at all levels.
It may not have carried the huge headlines of benefit caps and the price of beer or cider, but after a string of Government changes and announcements in recent weeks, local authorities across England and Wales are now facing up to one of their biggest challenges in decades.
So the new NHS is finally here, bringing the much discussed, often controversial, new NHS operating model - and a whole heap of new challenges for public communicators.
From the 1st April this year, changes to welfare benefits will start to affect the incomes and lives of people all across the UK.
There is hardly a council in the land that now does not proclaim itself an evangelist of digital channels as a crucial way to talk to residents.
Just after Boris Johnson was elected for a second term last year, an announcement was made by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport which we would have all been forgiven for missing - even those of us in the business of public sector communications.
Councils across the country are gearing up for the annual moment when they ask their residents to pay hundreds of pounds to the town hall in the form of council tax.
'The future civil service will be faster, smaller and provide more services online.' These were the words of Katherine Kerswell, the director-general of civil service reform at the cabinet office published in the Guardian recently.
Like many others in the public sector, I was very interested to read of the appointment of Westminster Council's Alex Aiken to the civil service's top communications role.
