About the Civil Service
History of government communication
The timeline
1850s First dedicated publicity unit set up by Post Office
1886 Board of Trade Journal launched
1912 Lecturers tour Britain explaining new National Insurance scheme
1918 First Ministry of Information created
1919 Air Ministry gets its own press officer from the outset
1932 First Chief Press Secretary appointed to 10 Downing Street
1939 Second Ministry of Information created
1946 Central Office of Information set up as non-Ministerial Department
1949 Government Information Service is introduced and the Information Officer class created
1980s COI becomes a trading fund
1984 Information Officer Management Unit set up
1990s Head of Profession role moves away from COI and becomes full-time post
1997 Mountfield Report published. Government Information Service renamed Government Information and Communication Service (GICS)
2004 Phillis Review; appointment of first Permanent Secretary of Government Communication
2005 Government Communication Network replaces GICS
2006 The GCN Engage framework is launched to develop a more strategic approach to government communications that puts the public at its heart
The history
In modern times, the first dedicated publicity unit was set up in the 1850s by the Post Office (then a government department). The Postmaster-General deplored the public's 'imperfect knowledge' of his organisation. He heralded 'this new way of bringing the activities of the Post Office to public and Parliamentary notice'.
The publicity unit's first wide-scale publicity campaign was carried out in 1876.
A million handbills were issued to alert the public to the virtues of government savings schemes, life insurance and annuities.
The Board of Trade Journal was launched in 1886, providing facts for the business community.
In 1912, Lloyd George realised that the success of the new National Insurance scheme depended on public understanding. He ordered a corps of lecturers to tour the country explaining its details to employers and workers.
Two great influences on government information work have been conflict and changes in the news media – particularly new technologies and increasing diversity. The Great War of 1914–18 saw both at work. News from the Front travelled home at the unprecedented speed of the telegraph. The Government invited Fleet Street editors to join its Information Advisory Committee, exploring ways to provide the public with war-related information. The Home Office opened an Information Bureau. In 1918 Whitehall's various units were consolidated into the first, short-lived, Ministry of Information. Its apparatus was dispersed around Whitehall departments soon after the war ended.
At its creation in 1919, the Air Ministry was the first department of state to be set up with its own press officer from the outset.
The General Strike of 1926 provided the Government – and others – with a real communication challenge. The fledgling BBC resisted pressure to become a government mouthpiece in the absence of strike-bound newspapers. In response, Churchill produced a government newspaper, the British Gazette. It is an experiment that has never been repeated.
During the 1930s and 1940s, departmental press offices moved from the simple role of answering enquiries to a more deliberate and proactive information policy. In 1932, the first Chief Press Secretary was appointed by 10 Downing Street, which built a special extension to house him.
Again, the two major influences were at work. The conflict was the Second World War; the changes in the media were the rise of popular journalism, cinema and broadcasting. To meet these challenges, the second Ministry of Information was set up in 1939.
The Ministry's job was to mobilise opinion and information to help the war effort. There was an enormous information job to be done. Volunteers were needed for a host of tasks. People had to understand air-raid precautions. The public had to know about the rationing system, and how to make the best use of food and fuel.
By 1944, the Ministry had 7,600 staff, and a further 1,700 staff with similar duties were employed by other departments elsewhere. Many were working overseas, and a regional organisation had been set up in the UK.
After the war, the Government decided that there was no further need for the Ministry. In 1946, the COI was set up as a non-ministerial department, the status it has today.
In the late 1940s, the Government decided to review the way departments conducted their information work. The Crombie Report proposed the setting up of the Information Officer class, which was duly done in August 1949. The Director-General of the COI took on the role of Head of Profession as part of his duties.
At this time, and up to the mid-1980s, the COI was funded by the Allied Vote. Departments wishing to run publicity campaigns sought the help of the COI, where the expertise lay. This changed in the 1980s, when the funds were devolved to departments and the COI became a trading fund under the Next Steps initiative. Major departments also increased their in-house specialist marketing and publicity staff, relying less on the COI's help.
During this period, another review of the service highlighted the lack of any formal qualifications that could be used to assess recruits. The Information Officer Management Unit was set up, and developed the assessment centre system that now underpins all recruitment and assessment. The Head of Profession role also moved away from the COI, and is now appointed by the Cabinet Secretary with the approval of the Prime Minister.
The 1997 Mountfield Report reinforced the importance of political impartiality for government communication and made proposals to improve the co-ordination and consistency of communication across government and to enhance its capacity to operate in a 24-hour media world. It recommended that the Government Information Service, created in 1949, should be renamed the Government Information and Communication Service to “imply the proactive exposition and justification of policy rather than the reactive answering of questions”.
By the time the Phillis Review was commissioned in 2003 the media
environment had changed again with ever increasing competition for news
stories and much wider use of digital media. Its report called for a
redefinition of government communication into a more customer-focused
two-way dialogue with the public, based on a strategic pan-media approach.
Among its recommendations were the recruitment of a Permanent Secretary for
Government Communication and a new network for all government
communicators, which became the GCN.