Media Friendly has been awarded the tender for media training the twenty five councils in the North East of England, commissioned by the Association of North East Councils.

The work involves running media training courses for local councillors in the North East of England from Berwick-upon-Tweed in the North of the region, down to Middlesbrough in the South. This includes Northumberland and Durham County Councils, Unitary authorities such as Newcastle City, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Gateshead Councils as well as the District and Borough councils in the North East region.

"We believe this is the first time such an organised swathe of media training has been commissioned, bid for and delivered for an entire region in the United Kingdom," says Andrew Carapiet, former BBC Local Government Correspondent and Director of Media Friendly.

"The response from councillors has been fantastic. Local Authority Members receive huge amounts of training which has to be done in their own (unpaid) time usually, so they don't suffer fools gladly. Most are not used to training courses which start at nine in the morning sharp and last the whole day with only a short break for lunch.

"But they've taken to it like a duck to water and the feedback has been wonderful, supportive and hugely encouraging.

"An excellent course, which was run in a friendly and informal manner"

"This was a thoroughly enjoyable course from a thoroughly experienced tutor"

"I enjoyed every minute of the course"

"An excellent day, well delivered at a good pace"

With the Government's decision to award Unitary status to Northumberland and Durham County Councils, many District and Borough councillors need an articulate and practised voice, so that their views on how these new Unitaries should be structured and organised can be heard.

The Communications Training programme, organised by the Association of North East Councils, has gone a long way to address those needs and truly support its members – some of whom have been left feeling disgruntled and vulnerable by the prospect of their councils not being in existence for much longer.

The training has been such a success that it is now planned to extend this to key Officers in the region who will need all their communications skills to cope with the media demands from all the structural changes to Local Government in the North East.