Communication Award 2013 - Sam Lister
What was your role then? Director of communication, Department of Health
And where are you now? Director general, industrial strategy, Department for Business and Trade
Can you tell us first about the campaign you won the award for? What was its aim and impact?
It was a public communication campaign to raise awareness about the likelihood of the Ebola virus arriving in the UK. It was the first time the UK had been at risk of an outbreak of a pathogen of this severity (a 70% mortality rate), and there was very high anxiety globally as cases started emerging. We needed to build trust: to reassure the public about government’s approach and preparation, and that there was a low risk of transmission; to inform NHS staff about what to do; and to build support for NHS work abroad (the risk was most likely from a health worker returning from West Africa).
What are you proudest of when you look back at that work?
We took a really rigorous approach to the monitoring of sentiment to inform the communication and how we coordinated, developed and adapted our comms across more than 400 different organisations. This included monitoring the proportion of key clinical staff who felt confident about how to respond to a potential case; and how wider NHS staff felt about local response plans. And, ultimately, there was a 19 percentage-point fall in the proportion of people believing Ebola was a significant or moderate threat to the UK – considerably better than in other countries we benchmarked against.
What were the main challenges that you recall?
We wanted the government to adopt a campaign of measured but maximum transparency – including the likelihood of the virus landing in the UK, that there would be multiple cases, and the operational challenges we were working through. Initially, there were understandable nerves that this was too high risk an approach – but we stuck to it, made the case and showed the evidence that it was effective.
And what are the most important lessons you took from that time?
Preparation is everything. On eight occasions, we had suspected cases of Ebola in the UK; each time, we stood the system up, and it was a hoax or a false alarm. And when the ninth case came (and the 11th and 12th), we all knew what we had to do, who we had to call and what we had to communicate.
What is your strongest memory of the night you won?
Enjoying a real team effort across multiple organisations – and a shared celebration.
Who did you tell first?
I’m pretty sure it was an email to the wider team (no quick WhatsApp groups then!) – there were many contributors to the project who couldn’t be there.
What impact did winning have on you, personally or professionally?
It was an important endorsement of our approach – and that taking thoughtful, well-evidenced risk, in a world that can often squeeze that out, can be the right approach.
Can you give us the highlights reel of your career since then – how did you come to be leading work on the industrial strategy in DBT?
After leading comms and marketing at DHSC, I moved to BEIS and took on more corporate and strategy responsibilities, and then ended up working on the industrial strategy policy portfolio. I moved to become director general at DCMS in 2019, with a mix of policy, corporate/COO and major programmes such as the Commonwealth Games. I returned to the world of industrial strategy a year ago (call it unfinished business!), where I have seen through the consultation, publication and now delivery of the industrial strategy and sector plans for the parts of the economy with the highest growth potential.
Do you have any advice for this year’s winners and shortlisted teams about making the most of their achievement?
Enjoy and give yourself time to reflect – we spend a lot of time in the civil service worrying about what’s going wrong and don’t do as much looking at what’s getting done well.