Public Affairs (PA) and Public Relations (PR) Consultancy Services Framework

PA services will focus on navigating the evolving political landscape, so we understand change and impact on our services and customers, and to help us inform and influence government policy. This includes: • Stakeholder Mapping and Engagement: Building relationships with key stakeholders across central and local government • Policy Monitoring and Intelligence: Monitoring political developments to anticipate and respond to change • Strategic Counsel: Providing strategic advice for proactive and reactive engagement • Advocacy and Representation: Providing advocacy development, consultation input, policy insight, and stakeholder representation • Reporting and evaluation: Deliver regular, engaging reports that highlight stakeholder engagement, policy developments, and most importantly the campaign’s outcomes and impact, while continuously evaluating and improving public affairs activities.

PR services will focus on managing public perception and reputation of the Group, enhancing general brand awareness, and supporting our Corporate Strategy and Strategic Objectives. This includes: • Strategic communications planning: Delivering a well-executed communications plan that is driven by campaign(s) to tell our story and maintains momentum with the right and most impactful media and key influencers. • Creating compelling and engaging content: a focus on high-quality communications to best connect and engage with media, customers, emerging influencers and other target audiences. • Strategic counsel: Providing strategic advice for proactive and reactive engagement to inform C-Suite level counsel. • Crisis and issues management: Access to 24/7 reactive communications support for high-level issues management. • Reporting and Evaluation: Deliver regular, engaging reports that evaluate PR activity effectiveness and highlight campaign engagement, outcomes, and their impact on achieving business objectives.

From time to time and as need may arise, Aster Group will require support for ad-hoc projects that extend beyond our day-to-day PA and PR programmes. These projects would be delivered over fixed time periods and may need to pull on skills across the full comms mix: PR, PA, research, social media, placemaking, event support, rich media content creation, among others. Results would need to be tracked, measured with impacts and outcomes played back to the business in a compelling and engaging way. These can include but not limited to: • Research e.g. consumer, market, perception studies, economic impact reports. • Roundtable / events support e.g. thought leadership campaigns • M&A activity e.g. to support growth ambitions • Social media support e.g. strategic guidance, measurement and evaluation