Public Practice

Announcing expansion to help ease skills crisis in council planning and place teams

Public Practice is a not-for-profit social enterprise has a mission to rebuild skills and capacity in the public sector to help improve places and communities across England.

Be The Best Communications was appointed to announce Public Practice’s expansion into the North of England after it secured a £200,000 investment by Homes England supported by the Department of Levelling Up, Homes and Communities (DLUHC). 

Our data team worked to establish that over the past decade there has been a fall of around 321,300 full time employees in local government from 1.343m in 2012 to 1.022m in 2022.

This shows there has been a reduction in the local government workforce of almost a quarter (24%) since 2012.

Over the past five years Public Practice has attracted more than 2,500 professionals to apply to its placement programme, 92% of which have come from people currently working in the private sector.

We were appointed to launch Public Practice across the North West, Yorkshire and North East.

Our work secured 20 pieces of media coverage in key local government and planning media including The MJ, The Planner, Planning Resource, Showhouse, The Architects’ Journal as well as key regional media including The Yorkshire Post, Northern Agenda, and North East Times.

The success of the launch meant Be The Best Communications was later appointed to announce the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities’ £1m investment in Public Practice.

Be The Best Communications worked with the DLUHC media team on crafting the announcement.

Be The Best Communications led media outreach for the £1m investment story securing coverage in Property Week, Estates Gazette, React News, Local Government News and The Architects’ Journal.