GCS: a year in review

7 Jan 2021 11:32 AM

2020 was an unprecedented year for the Government Communication Service (GCS), being at the centre of the UK Government Coronavirus (COVID-19) national response and also re-modelling the entire training and support offer within 3 weeks to ensure government communicators still had the skills they needed to operate effectively.

Here are some highlights of what GCS has achieved in 2020:

GCS membership

GCS has supported over 4,500 members across 25 ministerial departments, 21 non-ministerial departments and 300+ public bodies.

Government communicators constitute 1% of the total 426,000 full time equivalent civil servants (Institute for Government, June 2020).

Learning and development

GCS fully embraced the online training format, with 106 courses and webinars delivered, equating to on average 12 training sessions per month. This equates to 450 hours of training and has included leading edge training and support, showing GCS leadership.

The training was well received with an average course satisfaction rate of 4.3 /5. Over 3,000 tickets were available for GCS members to attend these courses.

Talent, mentoring and career support

The GCS early talent programmes still went ahead this year, with 35 apprentices and 53 interns placed across departments, arm’s length bodies (ALB’s) and agencies. 182 communicators joined a talent programme including Inspire and Impact.

The Communications Industry Support Initiative helped 80 communicators gain temporary employment within GCS.

Communication channels

The GCS social media channels had a high engagement rate in 2020, with an average of 4.8%. Lots of new people followed a GCS channel, with 1,000 new Twitter followers and a total of 7,400 followers on LinkedIn, doubled from the previous year.

The Public Service Communications Academy 2020

GCS co-hosted the Public Service Communications Academy with LGcomms. 653 communications professionals attended the 3 day event which included 21 hours of sessions.