Said to be shifting coal at the civic centre (5)
I believe the answer is:
vocal
'said' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'shifting coal at the civic centre' is the wordplay.
'shifting' is an anagram indicator.
'at' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (I've seen this in other clues).
'centre' means to look at the middle letters.
The centre of 'civic' is 'v'.
'coal' is an anagram of 'ocal'.
'ocal' put after 'v' is 'VOCAL'.
'to be' is the link.
(Other definitions for vocal that I've seen before include "speaking loudly" , "Audible in protest" , "To do with the voice, say cords" , "Freely expressing opinions" , "not instrumental" .)