Lifetime achievement UnAward
Jacqui Booth
To recognise the lifetime work of our colleague Jacqui Booth.She goes under the radar but is everything
anyone would wish for in a communications professional. An internal comms guru, she builds great relationships and is on the ball, organised and so dedicated to her work. She constantly shines a light on the fantastic work of colleagues and services in our NHS Trust in Calderdale and Huddersfield. Now it's
time for her to take the spotlight.
It's hard to articulate a strategy / plan for a lifetime achievement award. But it boils down to - Jacqui is brilliant. She's managed internal communications in our NHS Trust like a boss for over 10 years and has excelled in every area and is widely recognised by her peers as being an exceptional person - both professionally and personally.
Jacqui delivers flawless internal comms. From weekly feel good stories working with colleagues at all levels, supporting Exec teams to deliver messages on a live forum each week, to a weekly blog from the Chief Exec. She willingly takes the lead on communications planning around difficult messaging on a wide range of issues in our NHS Trust - from national events, industrial action to smoking and all importantly, hospital parking. Jacqui will cut through to the key message and is willing to challenge where she knows an idea won't land well with the intended audience.
What is important is that Jacqui will put the person first. Her kind and considerate nature translates through to how she approaches comms, and in how her messages land. Which is why they work so well - they have heart behind them rather than corporate spiel.
Just this year her internal comms expertise have seen her comms contributing to the highest number of flu vaccinations given to colleagues in just two weeks (nearly 2,000), and a record for our Trust in 420 nominations for our annual colleague recognition awards.
Colleagues from across the organisation know Jacqui to be a reliable expert in her field who always delivers the goods. They will seek out advice from Jacqui and proactively go out of their way to keep her involved across work which may need her input, and in a timely way (unheard of for comms!). It is testament to her long track record of delivering and the fantastic relationships she has built with colleagues.
Jacqui's commitment and drive to deliver excellent internal comms is recognised at all levels of the organisation - from our ward colleagues on the ground, right through to Exec level. She has been instrumental in the setup and delivery of an established and well recognised internal comms rhythm, which hits the key areas of colleagues knowing the 'who, what, why, when and how' for our internal comms.
Jacqui should win because her work has been instrumental in all our internal comms over the last few years. She gets consistently positive feedback, not only about the detail and excellence of her work. But she also gets feedback about her positive attitude, her ability to build relationships and ability to always get to the heart of the story. It is time for her to get some recognition!
Paul Masterman
I am delighted to nominate Paul Masterman for the 2025 Comms2point0 Lifetime Achievement Award.
Paul is an award-winning strategic communications, policy and engagement specialist whose
contributions to public sector communications over more than two decades have been transformative and
profoundly influential.
Paul has worked as a permanent or interim head of communications at seven top tier councils, as well as advising on or reviewing communications in the NHS, central government and the police service. He has been speaking, blogging and consulting on strategic communications in the public services for 15 years, consistently challenging conventional thinking and pushing the profession forward.
Paul's written contributions have been particularly impactful. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he argued that communications work must be based on "strategy, objectives, simple and shared messaging, audience insight and measurement" and that "too many communications professionals are not in the rooms where the big and very difficult decisions are made". He has championed evidence-based communications, insisting that "you can't comms your way out of the lack of a clear strategy".
Paul is an associate of the Local Government Association and LGcomms. Together with Fran Collingham
and Darren Caveney, he developed and delivered the Strategy Surgery workshops, empowering countless communications professionals to elevate their strategic thinking. Paul has also been instrumental in helping establish the Local Government Communications Leaders' Network.
Why Paul Deserves This Recognition:
Paul Masterman represents everything the Lifetime Achievement Award should recognise over 20 years of dedicated service, influential thought leadership that has shaped professional practice, countless hours invested in training and mentoring, courage to challenge orthodoxy, daring to be different and unwavering commitment to ethical, evidence-based communications. He has played a role in elevating public sector communications from tactical activity to strategic function and empowered a generation of professionals to negotiate their rightful seat at the leadership table.
His influence extends far beyond the organisations he has directly served - through his writing, training, and mentoring, he has shaped how an entire sector thinks about and practices communications.
I have personally always looked up to Paul right from early on in my career being amongst the first cohort of the LGcomms Future Leaders programme. I have had the honour of being a panel member with Paul at a national conference, where he put me at ease AND I was fortunate enough to have Paul mentor me a few years ago too.
He is a quiet soul, a man of few or quirky words and HUGE impact - an unsung hero and I don't think
anyone would argue he absolutely deserves this recognition.
I am delighted to nominate Paul Masterman for the 2025 Comms2point0 Lifetime Achievement Award.
Paul is an award-winning strategic communications, policy and engagement specialist whose
contributions to public sector communications over more than two decades have been transformative and profoundly influential.
Eva Duffy
To give full disclosure, I am Eva's husband and therefore have even more of a vested interest in her being recognised for her talent, commitment and work ethic than most.
But it also puts me in the position of seeing first-hand just how conscientious she is, especially in these
days of hybrid working, and seeing the impact she has had across different organisations and different
sectors.
Eva originally trained as a journalist in her native Ireland in the early 1990s and held various roles including my personal favourite when she worked at the Tree Council of Ireland.
After moving to England, she first became involved in the comms2point0 community when she was a
media relations specialist at Northamptonshire County Council. Her work, which included serious case
reviews and damning inspection reports, could be emotionally challenging but her ability to retain a clear head while still showing empathy for the people she dealt with always impressed me. She won various CIPR Public Service awards during her time at the council for projects such as a foster carer recruitment campaign called 'Could someone like you love someone like me?'
In 2014, she moved to Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust to become their Communications
Manager - a role she held for 4 years. At NGH, she balanced the operational complexities of leading the
media function for a busy NHS hospital with the kind of people-centred marketing she'd developed at the council.
Her nurse bank recruitment campaign won national awards and her idea for a 'bedside book club' turned into a successful initiative which was shortlisted for awards. It's still running to this day. The NGH website says: "Our Bedside Book Club volunteers love books and enjoy chatting with patients about their reading interests." What a lovely lasting legacy to leave when moving jobs.
In 2021 Eva fulfilled what I knew to be her career aspiration of becoming a Head of Communications when she joined the Royal Free Charity in north London. I know the charity values her leadership enormously and her team think incredibly highly of her.
This year, she has also started to share her knowledge locally by becoming a Trustee at the University of Northampton Students' Union. She loves this role despite it taking up more of her time on work-related activities.
On her LinkedIn profile Eva describes her contributions to the comms2point0 blog as "infrequent but
enthusiastic" which I think is a great way of putting it. The journey from her first post in 2012 to this year's blog about unreliable narration and the use of AI beautifully demonstrates both her learning curve and the way she has grown to become a leader in her field.
So yes, I absolutely am biased and can't pretend otherwise. But hopefully I've also been able to
demonstrate why you should ignore my bias and help give Eva the kind of recognition she deserves - and which would mean the world to her (and no, I haven’t told her I’m submitting this!)
Michelle Flint and Nigel Swift
I am nominating Nigel Swift and Michelle Flint for the lifetime achievement award because for 64 years in total of service, they have been in, and then in recent years run, West Yorkshire Police communications team successfully in a very challenging area of policing.
Nigel, before his retirement as head of corporate comms in 2023, had done 36 year’s service, and Michelle (still in her role as principal press officer) is currently on 28 year’s service.
They were a double act running the press office while retaining community confidence in a population of 2.2million that have faced threats from the far right, numerous protests, the murder of a high profile
politician Jo Cox, and lots of serious crime.
Both have had to appear as witnesses in court for different cases, not something a communications
professional expects to do.
To have two people at the head of the team in such a demanding part of the UK for such a long time has meant West Yorkshire Police has been lucky enough to have a huge depth and breadth of experience and guidance to draw upon.
The cases of Sharon Beshenivsky, who was murdered by a criminal gang during a Bradford robbery in 2005, and PC Ian Broadhurst, who was murdered in Leeds on Boxing Day 2003, were both managed by
Nigel, who was on call when the call came in about PC Broadhurst.
The fact community confidence hasn't been rocked significantly with such serious incidents has been, in
large part, down to their steady hand and calm and measured guidance to senior officers.
Michelle’s cases included the kidnapping of Shannon Matthews, which resulted in a major missing person operation and eventual sentencing of Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan.
And the murder of Leanne Tiernan, a 16 year old schoolgirl abducted and murdered less than one mile
from her home on 26 November 2000.
The missing person inquiry that followed was one of the largest in the history of West Yorkshire. Michelle also managed the press conferences for mother of two Wendy Speakes, murdered in her home on March 15 1994, with her killer being caught by a fingerprint fragment six years later.
She also covered the assault trial of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate (Leeds Utd players) which fell
through after the Sunday Mirror published an article prejudicing the trial. Bowyer was found not guilty after a second trial.
And looked after the case of two Leeds Utd fans stabbed and killed in Instanbul on the night before Leeds' semi final tie against Galatasaray in April 2000.
The murder of Lesley Molsteed was also under Michelle’s remit. Stefan Kiszko was wrongly convicted of
Lesley's murder in 1975 but in 2005, his conviction was overturned. Michelle worked on the reinvestigation and subsequent conviction of Ronald Crabtree, jailed in 2007 for Lesley's murder.
Their commitment, experience, knowledge and wise counsel means they are perfect recipients. The fact they would be horrified they were entered speaks to their lack of ego and humility.
Mark Marston
Mark has dedicated 40 years to the communications industry, starting his career as a graphic designer in 1984. This creative and design-led background laid the foundations to a long and varied career in
marketing, brand and corporate communications.
With creative flair and ideas, Mark always brings good, strategic ideas to the table. As a strong team player and effective communicator, Mark is always willing to share his ideas and listen to others' views - he loves a good chat which is one of his endearing qualities, and his friendly, approachable nature makes him an asset to any team.
Mark has built a wealth of experience in communications having worked for a variety of companies, from large corporations through to medium sized, small businesses and most recently in Local Government communications at Hertfordshire County Council for the past four years. In his role, Mark has supported with a wide range of media and corporate-led campaigns to inform and engage Hertfordshire's 1.2million residents.
Mark is a fantastic colleague and much-loved member of our team. He has a strong professional work
ethic and we hope this nomination will be recognition of his contribution to our team, Hertfordshire County Council and the professional of local government communications.