I visited my mother in law recently in her sheltered housing scheme and I noticed her Housing Association had changed their logo again. This seems to be the fashion in the public sector as well despite the cost.
More hospitals gain Foundation Trust status, mental health and learning disability Trusts merge and NHS and social care services integrate. New organisations are born, new services crated and a new identity is forged with a new logo and new strap line. Will staff, patients and the public care or even notice? If the experience of Local Government is anything to go by they will think it all a complete waste of money.
From the world of big business we took customer care, call centres, the bottom line, benchmarking, performance management, annual appraisals, performance pay and employee of the week. We also took branding. The Local Authority was a brand a trusted well established brand in need of refreshing and marketing but nothing a new logo couldn’t put right.
This struck a chord with councillors who were frustrated that the general public didn’t seem to know or care who empted their bins, ran their libraries, provided home helps for older people, filled in the potholes in the road and funded countless voluntary groups. Frustrated because every time the council tax went up the local media carried comments like” what does the council do anyway?” Frustrated because the switch to fortnightly bin collections was highly unpopular and they were getting the blame when this was the responsibility of the District council not the County council!
Branding would be shown through the use of the new expensive logo, different to the old logo in its shade of red and modern style of lettering. Branding, the marketing and communications gurus told us required every publication, letter and building sign to carry the new logo in exactly the same place, precisely the same size and with no variation in colour or type face.
If people visited a library, swimming pool or community centre they were to be in no doubt who it belonged to. There were some tricky conversations with partner agencies who now had to accept that the county council wanted its logo along side theirs as a condition of funding. Since other organisations also wished to promote their brand any literature to do with partnership initiatives had to carry everyone’s logo which made for some very cluttered promotional material.
Of course now the libraries, swimming pools and community centres are being closed as part of budget cuts this branding doesn’t look so clever. And of course the public sector is being encouraged to move away from directly providing services so now your home help could work for any one of a dozen companies who have a contract with the local authority, old people’s Homes are run by the private sector and people still blame the county council for not emptying their bins.
Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk
