Last updated: 20/11/2007

About the Civil Service

The communication challenge

Big changes in our society, and to the media that serves it, are presenting new challenges for government communicators. How do we ensure our messages cut through the clutter to reach increasingly cynical or indifferent audiences? Clearly, some of our traditional tools aren't working any more. And new situations are demanding new tools.

The communication landscape

To help us understand the implications of these changes for government communications, we commissioned a research project by the Henley Centre and Media Edge.

It found that people are increasingly choosing for themselves how to interact with the media. And that our public places more trust in personal networks rather than traditional methods of communication like news or advertising.

The clear conclusion was that the way we communicate in government has to adapt, to better reflect the attitudes and expectations of our audiences.

The Independent Review into Government Communications - The Phillis Review - also highlighted the need for us to raise professional standards, improve co-ordination across government and integrate communication with policy development.

The Phillis Review stated that government communication should be more two-way. It called for, 'genuine engagement with the public as part of policy formation and delivery'. But how do we do this?

Responding to the challenge

The Engage programme was created to help government communicators understand the implications of changing audience behaviour and to satisfy the findings of the Phillis Review.

We've spent a lot of time examining what works in government communication and what doesn't. We've taken advice from top flight communication practitioners in government and the private sector and adapted the best of their thinking for government. The policy and delivery community has also given us useful input too.

Engage offers a way to crack even the toughest communication problems. It gives us the tools to develop communication that reaches out and connects with audiences, and that changes behaviours and improves the quality of public services for every citizen.

Useful sources of information