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Lords launch inquiry into government communications

The Communications Committee has held the first evidence session to explore the impartiality, efficiency and effectiveness of government communications systems.

The inquiry will focus on how well the Government has implemented reforms recommended by the Phillis Review in 2004 specifically around building public trust, openness and regional communication.

The Phillis review

The Phillis review recommended that government communication needed to be more open, impartial and efficient and genuinely engage with the public. It identified a breakdown in trust between government, the media and citizens and set out seven key principles to tackle this and increase the public's involvement with politics and the democratic process.

Principles included openness, not secrecy; more direct, unmediated communications to the public; and genuine engagement with the public as part of policy formation and delivery. The House of Lords Communications Committee will judge whether reforms since 2004 successfully adhere to these principles.

Lord Fowler, Chairman of the Committee, said, ‘We want to know if the culture of secrecy and partial disclosure has been changed. We will also examine the rules governing the conduct of special advisers and whether their role in relationship to Civil Servants is now clear. It is vital that the government communications system should be both open and impartial.’

First evidence session

The first evidence session was held on 9 July with Sir Robert Phillis, the chair of the original report, Howell James, the former head of profession for government communications, and Alan Bishop, the chief executive of the Central Office of Information (COI).

Robert Phillis told how he was generally positive about the government's commitment:

‘I think the Government, led by the Civil Service, have implemented the recommendations with vigour… I think structural change has worked successfully in most areas we've studied.’ He said that ‘the shift in focus towards the citizen has helped distinguish between fact and comment.’

Phillis said, ‘The Prime Minister did accept that there should be a clear separation between the Civil Service role and political advisor role.’

Another big change since the report has been the launch of the Government Communication Network (GCN), a virtual community for all communicators across government that promotes best practice and helps people move on in their careers.

Partially in response to the report's recommendation for shifting investment out of London, COI also set up the Government News Network (GNN) to disseminate news and marketing in the regions.

Evolve, Engage and Directgov

Phillis highlighted three initiatives that he believes have been particularly successful: Evolve, Engage and Directgov. Evolve is an online tool that helps government communicators assess their skills. The Engage programme is a framework that helps communicators put the public at the heart of government policy and delivery. Phillis said, ‘Engage has been excellent in shifting the balance towards the citizen.’ Both GCN-led initiatives, he put forward, means standards in the Civil Service have improved significantly.

Directgov is the Government's official website for citizens and offers easy access to information and an increasing range of public services. ‘In terms of public engagement,’ Phillis said, ‘I think Directgov has been one of the great successes.’

During questioning, Howell James said he felt that the internet provides the greatest opportunity for ‘less mediated, more direct communications with the public.’ He said, ‘the web has given people an engagement with Government they've never had before’ – making them able to form their own critical judgements rather than be simply passive information receivers.

Alan Bishop informed the Committee that since the 2004 report, when there were about 1,500 government websites, there has been a radical online overhaul, and now there are just two main websites for the public: Directgov and Business Link.

With approximately 70% of people now online, Alan Bishop said the ambition is to make Directgov a ‘super site’ that you'd go to for all of your information and transactions with government. ‘It's an exciting project to make as much information as citizens want online as well as the transactions the citizen has to make – for example, not only find out what your car tax is, but to pay it online.’

Online access concerns

Phillis did, however, raise concerns about online access. A large proportion of the public still don't have access to the internet, and this is generally the ‘less fortunate and less advantaged’.

Both Howell and Alan said that they were aware of this issue and that government communications is still focusing hugely on conventional media such as local radio. Directgov is available too through digital television, which is currently more widespread than the internet.

A question of trust

The Phillis report's main goal was to change the culture of public mistrust in government. The Committee asked Phillis whether there had been success in this area over the last four years. He believes there has. ‘I think the citizen is becoming more and more empowered, and that's extremely healthy.’ He does think that ‘uncritical trust is a totally unrealistic and unrealisable goal’. It's right that citizens challenge their government.

However, a recent Ipsos Mori poll put puts politicians at the bottom rung of public trust, along with journalists and estate agents. Both Howell James and Alan Bishop both pointed out that, despite this, people's trust in Directgov is higher than that of the BBC and Amazon, so some positive changes are taking place.

Howell James also outlined the critical role internal communications must have in rebuilding trust in Government. The public highly trust public service practitioners and by placing a high value on internal communications (for example by bringing it into the GCN network), it's possible to help public service practitioners feel empowered, informed and better equipped to get the right information out to the public.

The future

Howell put forward his vision of the future for government communications: ‘I've been trying to move communications away from the idea of product delivery. We must stand back and think about what attitudinal changes we are trying to drive. We should be thinking much more holistically.’Communications‘ is about putting things out in a way that people can understand, not just creating press releases or contacting lobby journalists.’

He also said that with the rise of the social media such as chat forums and blogging, the possibility of misinformation being propagated has increased, and so Government Communications have been working on guidelines over the last year.

The networking site Netmums.com, for example, provides a wealth of information for new parents, but it's also possible for faulty information to spread through support forums, and so there must be a role for government to go online to provide the correct information to support people in their lives. How this will happen – and Howell believes it goes far beyond comms, to policy and delivery – is still being debated.

A coherent message

The biggest challenge facing government communications ‘is going to be the cross-government working on the biggest issues.’ While communications people are used to working together across departments, ‘what's more difficult is to find ways of policy people and ministers to come together...cross-department PSAs are going to require matrix working.’ To disseminate a coherent message and truly involve the public will be a challenge.

Howell said that in general, ‘I think there is a cultural change across Whitehall and we're having to get used to being much more open.’ He said that there's much still be done. ‘I don't think with something the size of shape of government we've reached all the corners yet.’

The next evidence session will be held on 16 July with Nick Robinson of the BBC, Tom Bradby of ITV, Adam Boulton of Sky News, Nigel Hawkes of The Times, Tim Marshall of Sky News and Frank Gardner of the BBC.

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