Decision

The Director of Public Health is requested to approve the acceptance of tender and award of contract to an external agency to deliver Public Relations activity to support the Cheshire and Merseyside All Together Smokefree Programme.

The contract will be awarded to Influential Agency Ltd, for £175,000 for the provision of PR services for the period from October 2025 to 31st March 2027.

There is no option to extend the contract beyond this period, however the value of the contract may change with the necessary procurement procedures.

Reasons for the decision

The award follows the completion of a legally compliant procurement process, and the contract 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.

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.