Decision

The Director of Public
Health is requested to approve the initiation of a legally
compliant procurement process for commissioning an external agency
to deliver Public Relations activity to support the Cheshire and
Merseyside All Together Smokefree Programme. The procurement will
be funded within the existing £200k budget for Public
Relations over 2025-2027, as part of the £5.7m All Together
Smokefree (ATS) programme budget provided by NHS Cheshire and
Merseyside and the nine Cheshire and Merseyside Local Authorities
as part of the Champs Public Health Collaborative budget. There is
an MOU in place between NHS Cheshire and Merseyside and Wirral
Council, which protects Wirral Council against liabilities as lead
host authority for Champs Public Health Collaborative

Reasons for the decision

Smoking costs the
Cheshire and Merseyside sub-region £1.75bn annually, with
direct healthcare costs of £75.9m. The ATS programme of work
is already underway across the sub-region to reduce the impact of
smoking and support achieving the Smokefree 2030 goal.
 
A key component of the
ATS programme is communications, including a large scale behaviour change campaign targeting
smokers and the general public. There
are also stakeholder engagement and advocacy strategies to support
communications and garner support more widely.
 
Public Relations will
support across these communications workstreams by serving to
amplify and raise awareness of the programme and key messages. It
is a critical part of any communications strategy, adding
credibility through organic content. In general, PR represents a
good return on investment for reaching key audiences.
 
In addition, effective
Public Relations is a crucial tool in managing reputational risk
and emerging issues for the ATS programme.
 

Alternative options considered

Not procuring
PR – This would render the programme’s
communications activity less effective, as the PR is a crucial
component in amplifying campaign activity.
 
In addition, it would
leave the programme vulnerable to reputational risk as it would
reduce our ability to respond to emerging issues in an effective
and timely way.
 
Reducing PR
budget – A budget reduction would result in lower
campaign reach and impact, limiting smoking cessation efforts and
the return on investment in campaign development and other
communications activities.