Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
THURSDAY 27 OCTOBER 2005
MR HOWELL
JAMES CBE
Q40 Julia Goldsworthy: Does the Central
Office of Information evaluate how effective advertising campaigns
are or is that again a departmental issue?
Mr James: They do. Virtually all
of government advertising campaigns are subject to a proper research
programme afterwards to make sure they have reached the appropriate
audiences, that value for money was achieved in terms of the money
spent, the audiences attracted, and then obviously there is an
evaluation of whether behaviours change. There are a number of
case studies which I would be delighted to forward to you about
changed behaviour resulting in savings for people applying for
pensions, wearing seatbelts, and they have quite sophisticated
ways now of making sure that these campaigns are meaningful.
Q41 Julia Goldsworthy: Do you think
that the amount that is spent on government advertising has increased
because government policies are getting so complicated? For example,
is a lot more spent on advertising tax credits because it is such
a complicated system for people to understand?
Mr James: I think advertising
expenditure creeps up partly because the cost of media goes up,
as you know; partly because we are using more and more different
ways of trying to reach hard-to-reach audiences. What has happened,
as you will be aware, is that the media has fragmented hugely.
There used to be a time when you could take a few advertising
slots on mainstream ITV and some national newspaper advertising
and you would cover the vast percentage of the population. That
is no longer the case. Therefore media buying has to be that much
more considered, it is more fragmented, and that does increase
your costs: it increases production costs, it increases the fees
and it also increases your media spend. Just to go out and reach
the sort of audiences that previous campaigns may have been able
to reach more simply does require that much greater input.
Q42 Julia Goldsworthy: You do not
think it is because of any complication of government policy?
Mr James: I hesitate to say that
that is the sole driver.
Q43 Chairman: Just going back a question,
I was not sure from your answer whether, if the charge is made
that government advertising crosses the boundary line in terms
of the guidance into propaganda, is this your responsibility or
not? Can someone come to you and will you get it sorted or are
you saying that it is someone else's responsibility?
Mr James: I would take an interest
in ensuring that if there was a complaint about the propriety
of an advertising campaign I would certainly see it as part of
my role to pick that up and start a dialogue inside government
about whether there was any merit in that complaint.
Q44 Mr Burrowes: In January when
you were looking at the future for government communications you
talked about the need for a wider and more ambitious remit for
government communication. By implication of that did you also
see that that would be more expensive communication?
Mr James: I do not think it will
ultimately. Do you mean in terms of paid communications and the
COI or just generally?
Q45 Mr Burrowes: Yes, generally.
Mr James: It is hard to put a
precise price tag on it. I suspect that, like all of the central
services in government, we are subject to greater and greater
efficiency pressures. I know a number of large departments are
already involved in reviews of their communications function to
look at how they can do what they do more efficiently and reduce
headcount and reduce costs within it. I think that will be a continuing
driver across government so I do not anticipate the costs of a
more effective communications function necessarily rising.
Q46 Mr Burrowes: In terms of advertising?
Mr James: I think the thing about
advertising is that if the advertising campaign in support of
the policy objective can be justified and so long as it is properly
measured, properly evaluated and deemed to have been of benefit
in terms of delivering the policy or changing people's behaviour,
then I think it has to stand or fall in its own right. I hesitate
to make a sort of across the board statement about whether advertising
costs will rise or fall. I think that will depend on what kind
of programmes governments introduce and whether or not paid communication
is deemed to be an appropriate and effective way of communicating.
Q47 Mr Burrowes: Would you envisage
during the cycle of a government there being particular stages
when advertising would be higher than at others?
Mr James: Certainly we tend to
bulk our expenditure in the cheaper times of the year.
Q48 Mr Burrowes: So in the run up
to an election, would that be a more expensive time of the year?
Mr James: The most expensive time
of the year for television advertising and I think press advertising
is in the lead up to Christmas when there are many, many players
in the market place buying air time and space. Quite understandably,
media owners look to maximise their advantage at that point. Government
tends to avoid those periods. We have tended—because of
that drive towards putting money into that pre-Christmas period—to
do a lot of advertising after Christmas where you can reach the
same amount of audience but you can do so at a much more efficient
cost.
Q49 Mr Burrowes: Would you consider
it extraordinary, as is reported, that £67 million has been
spent in the first three months of this year?
Mr James: The beginning part of
the year is where the best value air time can be acquired. Again,
one has to stand back from that headline figure and say that each
of these different campaigns is the responsibility of individual
departments in support of programmes. They are bought by departments
through the COI in an attempt to deliver the policy objectives
that they are seeking.
Q50 Mr Burrowes: That kind of expense
three months of the year in the run up to an election obviously
raises a charge that it is an expensive time of the year because
it is in the run up to an election.
Mr James: January to March period
is a lower cost time for buying air time, so that is why you often
see a greater degree of government advertising in that first quarter
of the year.
Q51 Mr Burrowes: Would you say that
has been the case during the normal cycle of a government outside
an election period?
Mr James: I would have to check,
but going back that is traditionally a more economic time period
to buy advertising space.
Q52 Mr Burrowes: In terms of those
figures you have looked at and the issue of public trust being
at a particularly low ebb (as was reported in Sunningdale) do
you think such figures increase public trust?
Mr James: I think if the public
look at the different campaigns that are being run—it is
necessary for government to recruit police officers, it is necessary
to recruit members of the armed services, nurses, teachers, expenditure
on wearing your seat belt, not drinking and driving and the quite
large sums of money that are spent on encouraging people to stop
smoking—they can be satisfied that that is where the money
is spent. It is mainly round those sorts of campaigns.
Q53 Mr Burrowes: Obviously the public
interest campaigns are justifiable but the criticism is that it
is also there to give a puff to government policies.
Mr James: I think there are a
number of policies where the department and the COI believe it
is legitimate to go out and persuade and alert the public to a
change in policy, a change in rules and regulations, a new form,
a new application of some kind that they have to be aware of and
the timetabling that that is being introduced in and what they
have to do to fill it in or get the benefit or get the credit
or whatever it is. These cases are made in their own right.
Q54 Mr Burrowes: Do you think it
is more cost effective and perhaps more credible to focus communication
on advertising and public information campaigns but using third
parties?
Mr James: I would always expect
departments to look at a mix of communication. You will have read
that I think there has been an excessive focus on media relations
in government communications and perhaps not enough consideration
given to other ways of reaching the public. I think, therefore,
any campaign should look across the full menu of what communications
routes or channels to market are available to you. If you are
trying to go out and persuade people then that includes websites,
it includes direct communications, direct mailing, that sort of
thing.
Q55 Mr Burrowes: You are recorded
as saying at Sunningdale that we have to use third parties to
make government announcements because they have the credibility.
Mr James: That was, I think, around
issues related to re-assurance, particularly around risk communication.
Q56 Mr Burrowes: For example the
issue of avian flu, we see the white coat strategy that you referred
to. There has been implementation of that.
Mr James: I think there is no
doubt that on issues of fact around disease and on issues of fact
around health risks of any kind, people look to an expert and
I think it is perfectly understandable that the Department of
Health are very happy that the chief medical officer is prepared
to give interviews and explain the circumstances in the same way
that the chief veterinary officer at Defra has been, but that
does not mean that ministers are not in evidence as well. I think
the public look across the piece and they expect communications
around different parts of an issue to come from different spokespeople
and that is inevitably the way it is developing.
Q57 Mr Burrowes: The concern that
was expressed at Sunningdale was that it was the third parties
that had the credibility and by implication the ministers did
not. From that, the issue seemed to be that there was concern
about the lack of substance in the policy. Is that still the case?
Mr James: I think the issue there
for the communications division in any department is: are we using
the best people to communicate with the relevant audience? Also,
deciding what the messages are, deciding who is best placed to
go out and deliver those with maximum credibility and, I think
on issues of fact around our health or on issues of fact around
the impact on the bird population in the current debate about
avian flu, the chief veterinary officer is a very credible spokesperson
in that regard.
Q58 Mr Burrowes: Going back to Sunningdale
in September the Government was described as being equivalent
to Sköda in the mid-nineties when the company had a bad reputation
and was in need of a rescue by Volkswagen. Would you say that
during the time you have been in control there has been any change
of perception?
Mr James: We are making progress;
it is going to take time. The questions that you put to me this
morning indicate how important the debates of the whole of government
communications and these rather difficult issues have become.
I try to live in the real world and I recognise it is going to
take a bit of time for the public to see the impact of whatever
change of behaviours there are in government, about us thinking
more about how we communicate and the manner in which we do that.
I hope that in the work I am doing (which is trying to bring the
best people in to do these jobs from wherever they are, whether
they are civil servants or from the private sector) ensuring that
we give the people who work in communications the proper support—in
terms of the guidelines about their behaviours, the sort of training
and development they need to be able to do their job effectively,
encouraging policy officials in departments to talk to communications
people as early as possible in the cycle so that they can have
a kind of meaningful conversation and inform themselves on these
issues—means that ultimately some of the debate and discussion
about difficult public communication can happen early. All of
these things will, I hope, ultimately ensure that we go out and
we communicate to the public in a way that they can connect with,
in a way that they will believe and be comfortable with, and where
they will get the information they want about whatever it is government
is doing that may impact upon their lives more effectively. My
pitch to my colleagues is that our aim should be to put the public,
in whatever guise they look to government, at the heart of any
communications strategy. Therefore you have to think through:
is it the media, is it direct communications, is it web-based
communications? How do we reach these difficult to reach audiences?
If you look at campaigns like the FRANK campaign out of the Home
Office they have been extremely innovative and very creative about
the way they use websites and events and where they go and where
they hold events to persuade youngsters to open up and talk about
drugs, and hopefully lead to a debate where people do not fall
prey to that.
Q59 David Heyes: You talked quite
a bit about the work that you have been doing to change behaviour
within government. You said there have been cultural changes in
government and I guess from everything you have said so far that
has been the focus of your attention, to change behaviours in
government. What actions have been taken, by you or anyone else,
to influence the behaviour of the media, the other key player
in this?
Mr James: I think it is for the
media to recognise their role in terms of communicating government
policies and it is for the media in their relationship with their
readers or their viewers to look to what they do. I personally
do not see it as part of my role to try to tell the media how
they should behave. There has always been—and I suspect
always will be—a healthy tension and debate between government
communications and the media and I do not anticipate that changing
very quickly. You said in your own report that if government plays
it straight and the media plays it fair that we would move forward.
I hope that what I am encouraging is a debate which will enable
government to play it straight, and then it is really for a wider
public debate and the media itself to think about what contribution
it wants to make to that debate.
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