FACe

New, electronic Newsletter been launched today for the Council's Children and Families Department - official blurb from the launch can be found here ... and the first edition itself can be found here.

... on the face of it (sorry, couldn't resist that!) I reckon this innovation has decent potential and is a good development.

What it absolutely must avoid though - otherwise people will just see it for what it is - is being "nothing but" a propaganda tool for the Department ... and if the lead-article in the first edition is anything to go by, then its not a great omen. I'll quote:

"Improving our school estate is one of Edinburgh's priorities and in recent years there has been a huge investment in our school buildings. We are committed to continuing with this investment and a number of construction programmes are currently taking place in the city."

Slight failure to mention that NOT ONE construction programme has been initiated in the last 18-months and that come early 2010, when the current second-round of the school building programme is finished, there is nothing to follow it.

To be fair, the rest of the Newsletter content is fairly informational - as opposed to the 'aspirational' quoted above!