Fiona Wilson, of the Scottish Government, talks about a day in the communications directorate.

1. Scottish Government Communications
Fiona Wilson
Head of news

2. Communications Directorate
• Position the Scottish administration as a model of a
communicating Government, delivering the Scottish
Government’s Purpose by supporting everyone in the
organisation to engage effectively with and influence
audiences, helping Scots make informed choices and to
understand the positive role of Government in their lives.
• We aim to be, and be seen to be, the top public sector,
full service, ‘joined up’ communications team, providing
expert advice and support; agile, responsive and
creative, with the experience, skills and tools to innovate
and lead in a challenging and rapidly changing
environment.

3. Context
• Award Winning teams
• Our “Bosses”
• The Constitution
• International Reach

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What most people think we do
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What we actually do
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6. Communications Directorate
Stakeholders
News Public
Corporate
Marketing
Media Comms
Comms Policy
Digital
PR
SPADs
International Mkt agencies
marketing
Ministers
NDPB’s
Scottish Government strategic objectives

7. SG Communications
• Around 90 staff across Marketing, PR,
News, Digital, Corporate Comms and
Support services
• News teams grouped around Ministerial
portfolios eg Health – “virtual” teams with
all disciplines
• Moving towards cross-cutting, flexible,
issue based working eg Referendum

8. 06.45 – Media Monitoring Team arrive
09.15 – Morning meeting
11.00 – Daily Briefing for Parliamentary journalists
12.00 – FMQ’s (Thu)
13.30 – Lunchtime news
17.30 – Duty Officer starts
18.00 – Evening News
c vr es r uoh 42
10.30 – Scotland Tonight
11.00 – Newsnight Scotland
A Day in the Life of Communications
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9. Typical Day – if it exists!
• Morning meeting - what are we doing,
anything running that affects that/rebuttal
• Ministerial visits/press conferences
• Daily briefings to political journalists
• Forward Planning meetings
• Policy/Stakeholder discussions
• Recces, news releases, tweets, updating
web, evaluation, social media monitoring

10. Continued……
• Foreign engagements/Trade missions
• Produce film shows/Design an App
• Present behaviour change evaluation to
Ministers
• Staff events and stakeholder engagement
• Evaluate tenders/Sign off campaigns with
Ministers
• Develop new web pages with digital
agency

11. Key Relationships
• Policy Officials
• Ministers
• Special Advisers
• Media
• NDPB’s/Agencies

12. Knocked off course
• Sudden events or
decisions
• Ash clouds
• Extreme Weather
• Terror attack
• Many things can
trigger the opening of
our Resilience Room
- SGoRR

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Questions?