Overview
The scorecard offers public authorities a chance to evaluate preparedness and performance, based on what is currently considered ’best practice’. Its foundations are strongly rooted in research on crisis communication and crisis management. Despite the rich body of knowledge on crisis management, instruments that allow managers to incorporate lessons learned into communication practice with the aim of improving an organisation’s capacity to respond in a crisis are largely lacking.
Stakeholder orientation and process model
The needs of various stakeholder groups have been taken into account. Communication policies should be steered by the needs of the affected people and communities. Then, next to communicating directly with citizens, the news media also need attention as an intermediate target group. Finally, the quality of the communication within the network of response organizations is scrutinized.
A process model is followed, acknowledging that different phases of a crisis - , preparing for threats, responding to crises, or resolving them - entail different communication tasks.
More information about the research on which the Scorecard and guides are based can be found in the downloadable research documents, papers and links.