When a major terrorist incident occurs, communications really can save lives. We can all learn lessons from those who have witnessed such comms planning up close…

Terrorists don’t just turn up on the day and decide to commit an atrocity. It’s a big deal for them too.

Their planning isn’t all hooded figures staking out targets and avoiding the CCTV cameras. Nowadays, there are many official and unofficial sources that contain floor plans and innocuous-seeming information that can aid the potential attacker.

Indeed, many public spaces qualify as ‘soft’ targets. We use them every day – train and bus stations, entertainment venues, shopping centres and so on. For the terrorist, these locations have two crucial ingredients: wide open spaces and a large number of civilians.

In the event of a terrorist attack or another major incident, communications can play a decisive role. Get the communications right between the emergency services, the victims and the authorities, and the turmoil can be minimised. Get it wrong, and mass panic and chaos could ensue.

This interplay is the subject of new guidance from CIPR and the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), entitled Crisis Management for Terrorist Related Events. The core idea is that comms offer vital security in two key ways: helping prevent an attack in the first place through deterrence (security-minded communications) and helping to mitigate the impact and aid recovery following an attack (crisis comms).

While comms and public relations can sometimes be dismissed as fluff, effective communications during these major incidents really can save lives.

Prepare and prevent

Anyone travelling in the UK will be familiar with the slogan ‘See it. Say it. Sorted’, which encourages passengers to report anything unusual to the authorities. It has become a part of the commuter’s daily life.

However, the campaign’s real target audience may surprise you. When it was launched in 2016, then rail minister Paul Maynard explained: “We want to send a clear message to anyone threatening the security of the rail network that there are thousands of pairs of eyes and ears ready to report any potential threat to British Transport Police and rail staff, who are ready to respond to these reports.”

Comms planning for terror attacks is all about getting into the mind of the potential perpetrator. And you achieve that by developing what is known as ‘security-minded communications’, an approach pioneered by CPNI.

Paul Williams, senior security manager at The O2, was an early adopter of this approach, working with the comms team to promote the venue’s ‘security posture’ and deter potential attackers, while also reassuring visitors that the venue is a safe destination to visit.

“A security-minded strategy is unachievable without communications, marketing and security teams working together,” Williams says. At The O2, the teams jointly developed digital messages for the venue’s website and social media channels, as well as designing and placing physical signage, producing public-address tannoy messages and creating fan-cards that inform visitors of the relevant security measures.

“All of these initiatives have two aims: improving the visitor experience and deterring criminality,” says Williams.

Planning is everything

Terror-related incidents can take many forms, involving groups as diverse as environmental campaigners and religious and political extremists. With such a breadth of threats, planning encompasses more than just the usual scope of crisis comms. In large organisations, crisis planning can be particularly complex, involving multiple departments. With all this in mind, CIPR and CPNI’s guidance includes tips for shaping and implementing a plan of action for the comms team and contains principles that will work across most terror-related scenarios.

These include:

Holding statements: Prepare a selection of responses suitable for a range of incidents, ready for issue (with minor amendments) in the initial stages of the crisis.

Roles and responsibilities: Outline who is the designated person for emergency planning and managing crises. Identify spokespeople and delineate team members’ specific roles. Externally, know your appropriate partners. This is not just for the comms team – it is important that all staff are aware of the role they play in contributing to security.

Wellbeing: The crisis life cycle can be lengthy and may involve 24/7 working. Shift patterns and recovery time should be arranged. Potential partners (including extra resources from an external agency or another internal department, such as marketing or HR) should be included.

Contact list: Gather details for your key team members and external stakeholders, including media (as required).

Systems: Have all the necessary log-ins, processes for corporate channels (amending a website or switching to a dark site, for example), technical guides and building access details.

Resources: Not everything will be available during a crisis, as Jo Hall from the City of London Police’s counterterror scheme Project Servator found out. “If the computers are down, you need to have a hard copy of the comms plan. And make sure to have grab bags with phone chargers, boots and waterproofs. At Parsons Green, I was there for 12 hours. And you need to know where the car parks are near your base if public transport is down.”



Managing the fallout

Any terror-related incident is going to be extremely stressful for all involved. If people aren’t familiar with their roles and the potential scenarios, cracks will start to appear.

The CPNI/CIPR guidance repeatedly states the mantra ‘practice, practice, practice’. You need to generate total confidence in your messaging; any uncertainty will be evident to the audience. Laurie Bell, former director of communications for Wiltshire Council, had first-hand experience of this when Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned in Salisbury last year.

“The person in charge of communications must have the gravitas, confidence and experience to be able to suggest messages,” she says.

They’ll also need to work with the police. As the established voice of accurate information, the police will almost certainly lead the messaging.

You need to make sure that you are ready to work with them. You must also understand what they’ll be communicating – and what they won’t. “Their priority is safety and to try and stop this from happening again,” says Dan Gerrella, who co-authored the CPNI/CIPR report. “They won’t consider the organisation beyond making sure the venue or whatever is safe.” In those circumstances, it will be up to the affected organisations to consider the lasting impact of a terror attack – on their reputation and on other stakeholders, for example.

It’ll be the job of the affected organisations’ comms teams to think about their own people. This includes the internal audience, some of whom might be directly affected by the unfolding events. Dedicated channels should be established because conventional lines of communication – mobile phones or an intranet, for instance – could be restricted, overloaded or totally down. You must also make sure that people know about these arrangements.

Looking after the team

Terror incidents cast a long shadow, and a comms team will feel this intensely. There will be investigations, during which message discipline must be maintained, along with managing increased media scrutiny.

Sometimes, you won’t even know when a crisis is over. Some can appear to be winding down only to take a new turn. Three months after the initial poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Charlie Rowley found the nerve agent in a perfume bottle and gave it to Dawn Sturgess, who sprayed it on her wrist and later died.

“The first incident was challenging, but the whole dynamic changed in the second incident,” says Bell. “Someone had died, so the comms were definitely more challenging then.

“We thought we were in recovery, but then it hit again. Your resilience is tested,” she explains. “You need to find that inner energy to face the world’s media again.”

In particular, a terror-related crisis will put unprecedented emotional stress on a team, and welfare must be part of your planning. In 2017, Amanda Coleman, head of corporate communications at Greater Manchester Police, told Influence of the toll that the Manchester Arena attack had taken on her and her team.

“The duty of care is really important,” says Sarah Pinch, co-author of the CPNI/CIPR report. “It’s really important to have people to talk to, both formally and informally, who can offer support, as well as having a plan for how you’re going to bolster your communications team during a crisis. Some of these incidents will go on for a long time.”

Time out

The team will understandably be anxious to do the best job they can when a terror-related crisis breaks. But if everyone is giving 100% from the start, you risk missing the wood for the trees. Teams operating in a stressful, 24/7 environment with high levels of media scrutiny will need to switch off, but this might be operationally impossible.

The answer may be to divide the team in two to allow one team to take over while the other has some downtime. You’re better off thinking about this during the planning phase, because when the crisis hits, it can affect a team member’s morale to be sent home without understanding why.

Should you send comms people to the scene? Emergency responders will be better prepared than a press officer for what they might see, and one contributor to the CPNI/CIPR research said that attending the incident could lead to trauma and make it more difficult for comms professionals to do their jobs. Indeed, it will be important to offer counselling and support to all involved.

Thankfully, most comms professionals will never experience a terror attack. Yet as the incidents in Salisbury and at London Bridge showed, it is impossible to predict where they may occur. That might sound like a recipe for paranoia, but as the CPNI/CIPR report shows, you can be prepared. “It’s not about saying to people that you should spend every waking hour worrying that someone is going to put a bomb in your shop,” says Pinch. “It’s about having a plan.”

You can download a PDF of the CIPR/CPNI guidance at bit.ly/32V9d2g

---

A version of this article was first published in Influence magazine, Q3 2019.