Issue: Q4 2021
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Government Communications: Modernised or Controlled?

Government communications are changing. Reform is being implemented, but not everyone believes that the change is welcome. And it is not just a battle over centralised control but also about how government engages with business.

The appointment of Alex Aiken in 2012 to create the Government Communications Service (GCS) and develop cross-government campaigns transformed how the government communicated. The emphasis on skills and strategy development, among other changes, made government communications a leader in the sector and an area in which people wanted to work.

As the ‘professional body for government communicators’, the materials the GCS made publicly available are a fabulous resource for all communicators. But change has been coming for some time.

The ‘reshaping’ programme started in July 2020, with the intention to “form a more united, modern profession running fewer, bigger and better campaigns”.

The headlines focused on the proposed reduction in headcount and also aimed to strengthen engagement with arm’s-length bodies (ALBs), as well as delivering fewer, but bigger and better, campaigns addressing core government objectives.

However, the reform has been turbo-charged by both Covid and personalities at the very heart of government.

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Cain’s challenge

Lee Cain was Downing Street’s director of communications between July 2019 and December 2020 under Boris Johnson. His background in the Vote Leave campaign is well known. Shortly after leaving government, Cain wrote a paper for the Institute for Government (IfG) outlining his plans for reforming government communications.

In his paper, Cain highlighted failings in the GCS such as the lack of digital skills and broadcasting experience. He complained that the emphasis is “still disproportionately aimed at print outlets”. He used the Covid crisis as an example of how mixed messages were delivered, which damaged the government’s response. At the heart of Cain’s paper was a ten-point plan for reforming the GCS, representing a radical change.

The focus was a new centralised employer, rather than individual departments, alongside a significant reduction in staffing numbers, with the GCS headed up by several officials at director general level. The emphasis would be on the development of a single government voice.

However, as Alex Thomas in a response from the IfG notes, “too much central management risks politicising GCS”.

In addition, central control of communications is unlikely to solve all the ills of communications. There will always be policy failures for any government. The recent findings of the Public Accounts Committee looking at NHS Test and Trace concluded that, despite a budget of £37 billion over two years, “NHST&T has not achieved its main objective to help break chains of COVID-19 transmission and enable people to return towards a more normal way of life.” 

More control doesn’t lead by default to better communications. Is raises issues such as the implications for autonomy for individuals in smaller teams in government departments, and how a cross-departmental structure would operate.

Centralisation also carries with it the implication that ‘No 10 knows best’, yet the reality is that the departments would still bear the responsibility of implementing the detail of the policy. If the centralised communications team is to decide on the communications strategy and then hand that back to departments to deliver, this carries with it huge potential for miscommunication. The centralised team won’t always have a perfect understanding of the policy, so the detail of the relationship between teams would be critical to its success.

The recent appointment of Alex Wild, ex-Taxpayers’ Alliance, was seen as a bridge between the Conservative Party and No 10. But anyone joining the GCS, for instance as one of the super directors to oversee the others, would need to be aware of the direction of travel and be comfortable with that, not least in terms of a potential clash with their own independence, as highlighted in the CIPR’s reaction to the ‘ill-judged’ DHSC communications guidance.

Government numbers

While a press team of 30–40 may be deemed to be the ideal size, the latest government figures (March 2021) as highlighted in the recent PR Week article, show a massive variation between departments, and there’s a threat of significant reductions for some of the larger departments. According to the government’s own figures, there has been a rise in the total number of communications professionals (up from 2,220 in 2020 to more than 2,800), with 540 at the Ministry of Defence alone. The Treasury and DCMS have 40 people, which is more in line with the numbers that reformers believe should run press teams in departments.

Of the ALBs, HMRC has the biggest communications count of any of the government agencies.

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Business engagement with government

The proposed reforms also need to be considered in relation to engagement with government by businesses and others. Dr Nader Farahati, former Deputy Director for Business Engagement at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, placed considerable emphasis on improving the way that departments engaged with business, looking for greater consistency and how best practice could be applied across them. His departure was mourned by many, as was the scaling back of the size his team. His ‘successor’ David Bickerton, appointed in August as Director General for Business Sectors, has yet to set out his approach and priorities in any detail. There are concerns that the change signifies a lessening of commitment to the business engagement by government departments.

There are some good examples of how departments have engaged, which others could learn from. The Department for International Trade, at the forefront of the Global Britain, post-Brexit agenda, is widely considered to have reflected business interests well. Instead of senior civil servants or ministers simply deciding on trade priorities, there were genuine efforts to ensure that they matched those of business.

Other departments, such as the Department for Transport, have been consciously and proactively trying to reach out to stakeholders to build a dialogue. This can, in turn, help businesses to plan ahead.

From the government’s perspective, a move towards a more centralised system could shift the weight of expectation even more onto No 10. While the current business engagement team is looking at the top 150 companies, they could be inundated under a more centralised system, despite support from the Office for Investment.

However, it seems inevitable that business engagement will ultimately need to focus on the centre as well as the departments. It may even have to help align them, which brings with it not only the danger that business issues become increasingly politicised, but also the potential for increased use of resources.

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I want this to be a moment to get our mojo back, bring people together and share ideas. It is a moment for us to be even more confident, ambitious, and innovative post-pandemic.

Politics vs government

Simon Baugh was appointed as the first Chief Executive of Government Communications in October 2021. When his appointment was announced, there was an emphasis on his experience in both public and private sectors. On his first day in the job, he posted a blog:

“I want this to be a moment to get our mojo back, bring people together and share ideas. It is a moment for us to be even more confident, ambitious, and innovative post-pandemic.”

The comment appears to be an implicit acceptance by the new leadership that not everyone is enthralled by the changes already being implemented and those proposed.

As well as concerns about an overloaded centre, there are questions raised regarding the resilience of relations between departments and whether collaboration will have much future.

Some have argued that centralisation equals politicisation, yet to an extent this ignores real-life politics. Departments reflect the will of their ministers. If the centre were to be solely in control, then Brand Rishi would be in trouble. The centralised approach is politically challenging because ultimately the PM would be in charge of the media profile of ministers, who would only be ‘allowed’ a media profile under the say-so of the centralised team. That is politically unsustainable.

One of Cain’s other ideas is that Special Advisers should ‘just’ focus on political matters, leaving a department’s head of news as the press/official spokesperson. That approach may protect an incumbent PM but will ultimately do little to silence potential challengers.

Similarly, what does a career in communications look like if it lacks any degree of autonomy? If the role risks being compromised, would the government be able to retain the best communicators?

Transparency

Cain’s paper recognises that alongside the changes he proposes, there should be regular televised press briefings with the PM or his press secretary. Whether this is transparent enough is already under debate, not least because the briefings already promised were abandoned before the paint was even dry on the £2.6 million media suite.

The passing of Brian Walden in 2019 gave politicos a chance to relive his hour-long interviews and see how real pressure could be applied on politicians. Similarly, there was an outcry when Johnson dodged an Andrew Neil interview during the 2019 general election campaign, for reasons that Dominic Cummings tweeted about.

The heart of the trouble is that it is unclear where the difference lies between Boris Johnson as Prime Minister and Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party looking to ensure his success in the general election. Command and control is a model that is needed in campaigning but it does not suit the demands of government because of the extra responsibilities of transparency. It is also unlikely to survive the reality of day-to-day politics.

Cain’s paper, though, contains many ideas that should not be ignored, not least in relation to the importance of skills – but that is an area long championed by the GCS. Cain is also right to highlight the critical role of research and insight. There are some good people in the GCS doing this work, but it needs to be the norm in terms of good policymaking across departments.

Both Cain and the GCS are right to continue pushing the service forward and developing it. But communications has many facets and sometimes competing interests; it is not just about delivering a message. As we have seen with the Owen Paterson saga, centralisation does not always make for good decision-making or communications.