Police Marketing and e-Communications contract worth up to £3m - yet some advice is free!

HUMBERSIDE POLICE have joined with three other police forces (North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire Police forces) to procure a contract to deliver its marketing and communications service (see publicTENDERS.net).

The contract, which could be worth anything between £600,000 and £3 million, has been put out for public tender and work is expected to commence by 13th June this year. It will cover four key areas: Public and Media relations, design services (brochures, booklets, newletters and adverts to new logos and advertising campaigns), campaign planning and e-Communications / social media.

The publication of the public tender has predictably caused outrage amongst those scrutinising police budgets and opposing cuts in police services and jobs.

However, if the Humberside Police Authority's "BIG Conversation" is anything to go by, then there is definitely scope for the authority and the police force to learn a bit more about the use of e-communication and social media! The 'online conversation' held last year was painfully slow using a static website and software rather than the dynamic converstional software that is currently available - and available free of charge! HU12 advised at the time:

The technology used to conduct the question and answer session is quite slow and laborious - those used to using near-instant conversation services such as Facebook and Twitter will find it frustrating! So those wanting to ask questions are encouraged to post them in advance.

Advice and information on the implementation of the social media part of the public tender is currently available at little or no cost from 'open-source' communities. In today's cost-cutting environment it would have been good to have seen the police forces using these community resources.

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