Media and presentation training for councillors
Confidently and effectively represent your community in the media and in the council chamber with our specialist Media and Presentation Training for elected members.
Delivering your messages with confidence, clarity and credibility
Councillors are always under scrutiny, whether responding to journalists, speaking in council meetings or talking to residents. This means elected members must communicate clearly, confidently and responsibly while also balancing political leadership, public accountability and community representation.
Our media and presentation training for councillors is designed specifically for local government. Delivered by former BBC journalists and experienced communications professionals, the course helps councillors develop the skills needed to handle media interviews, speak with authority in public forums and communicate complex policy decisions in language residents understand.
Through practical exercises, realistic interview scenarios and expert coaching, councillors gain greater confidence in their delivery, clarity in their messaging and stronger presence when representing their ward and their authority.
Full day or half day training
At your location or online
Practical interview and presentation sessions
Tailored to your council and your members
Ideal for teams of any size
Course overview
This tailored training programme combines media training with focused presentation coaching to strengthen the communication skills councillors use most often in their role. Delegates learn how the media landscape works, what journalists are looking for and how to shape messages so they resonate with residents and local audiences.
The course also focuses on the practical realities of local government communication. Councillors develop techniques to handle challenging questions, explain policy clearly and maintain credibility when facing political scrutiny or sensitive issues. The training draws on Mosaic’s proven communication frameworks to help delegates structure messages effectively and deliver them with confidence.
Each delegate participates in realistic interview and presentation exercises linked to their role and likely areas of scrutiny. Scenarios reflect genuine pressures within local authorities so councillors can practise responding to difficult questions, strengthening their delivery and protecting both personal and council reputation.
Sample course outline
- From Achieve to Structure and everything in between
- Using storytelling to connect with residents
- Communicating clearly
- Techniques to improve delivery and confidence
- Body language, Relax, Appearance, Voice, Eye contact, Rehearse
- Managing nerves
- How local and regional media operate, including podcasts and digital media
- What journalists look for in a story and why
- How council issues become headlines
- Building constructive media relationships
- Questions to ask before any interview
- Live v pre-record
- What to expect on radio and TV
- Responding calmly and effectively
- Thinking on your feet
- Bridging to your key messages
- How not to say the wrong thing in interview
- Preparing key messages for your scenario
- "As real" broadcast interviews led by former journalists
- Review and feedback
- Structuring your content
- Engaging your audience
- Effective delivery
- Dealing with questions or challenge
- Review your presentation content with your new skills
- Deliver your presentation or speech
- Feedback
Not quite what you’re looking for? We can tailor this training to your exact needs. If you require a shorter session, more delegates or a unique course outline, contact us to discuss bespoke options.
Frequently asked questions
Have any other questions? Get in touch.
We don’t do open courses for individuals. Sorry about that.
We specialise in tailored training that’s created to exactly meet your needs, so our courses will be made uniquely for you and/or your organisation.
If you’re interested in a one to one tailored session or a group course for your organisation, do get in touch!
Our courses are all tailored specifically to you and your organisation’s needs. So usually our training is delivered at your place. We’ll be pleased to come to you, wherever you are.
If you prefer to book a hotel, meeting room or other accommodation that’s fine too.
If it’s hard for you to get everyone in one place we can also do your training online using either Zoom or Teams.
Our pricing depends entirely on your needs – we don’t do “one size fits all”!
Our course development includes working with you to understand your current levels of skills and experience, what you want to achieve from the training and how we can get you there.
We’ll also want to find out how many people you want trained and where you’d like the course delivered.
Once we know all that we can price your course which means you won’t pay for anything you don’t need.
As a guide, most of our full day courses start at £1995+VAT for up to four people, so that’s less than £500+VAT a head.
But speak to us and we’ll make sure we’re within your budget.
Absolutely! And we don’t just think so – our clients keep coming back, which tells us we’re giving them real value. We’re really proud that 40% of our work is with returning clients, so we must be getting it right.
Because we specialise in tailored training, everything we do for you is aligned to your outcomes. We know you don’t want to spend time or money on training that’s not directly going to help your business or organisation.
Apart from our one to one training, our fees are always for group sessions, so the most efficient cost per head is to fill all those places. It’s also really efficient to have two trainers attend if you have a large group size or have consecutive days of training. We’re always happy to explain our pricing – just let us know.
Everything you need!
- Planning meeting(s) with you to develop learning outcomes
- Course programme development
- Course content research and creation
- Scenario research to make your training relevant and “as real as it gets”
- Delivery by our former BBC journalist trainers and marketing experts
- Most courses have our Pre Course Questionnaire so we know what each delegate wants to achieve from their session with us
- Copies of our PDF guides as applicable
- Recordings of the full training session (online training)
- Recordings of radio and TV interviews carried out during the training (in person training)
- Course admin including scoping availability, confirming resources, booking confirmation and invoicing
No problem. The great thing about tailored training is that it’s exactly that. Tailored to you, including your availability. Speak to us and we’ll create a programme that fits your time.
Yes! We like to support charities with a discount, do ask us for more details.
We also offer discounts for multiple bookings. So for example if we create you a tailored course and you book multiple sessions, later ones will be discounted since the groundwork is already done. We’ll go through this once we know what you want.
Yes. We deliver training across the world and it’s nearly always much easier for one or two of us to come to you than all of you to come to us.
As a registered BCorp, we’re committed to using public transport wherever we can. Our travel cost covers our train fare, transfers and overnight accommodation where needed. We also charge a token amount for our travel time. This is because when they’re travelling to you our trainer isn’t available to train someone else.
We’ll cover all this in detail when we send you your proposal.
Lots of organisations come to us in exactly that situation.
By bringing in our expertise your team’s skills will be sharpened even further which helps your organisation and their professional development. For example, you might only deal with a media crisis every few years – we handle them every day for our wide selection of clients!
Our training is also an invaluable external assessment of your skills, capacity and resilience. Think you’ve got all skills covered? Let us confirm that for you by putting them into practice, or help you fill the gaps.
We can also help you address professional development. Our BBC expertise means we can give credible, valued feedback to all your delegates, including conversations you may not feel confident to have.
Why choose Mosaic for your training?
Our outstanding training is unique in the following ways:
- We have more than 25 years’ experience training a wide range of organisations including blue chip companies, schools, universities, charities and government departments.
- Every course we deliver is individually tailored exactly to your needs. We never do “off the shelf” training - your course will be about skills, issues and great practice in the areas relevant to your clients.
- Our media trainers are former BBC or print journalists and communications professionals. They bring insight and expertise to each course based on decades of delivery and success.
- We are a B Corp Certified Company, so we are committed to sustainable and ethical practice to benefit people and planet.
