Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from Chris Bryant MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
AND FCO STRATEGIC
COMMUNICATIONS
1. I am writing to update the Committee
on the FCO's work in public diplomacy and strategic communications
and the structures that govern both. In response to a short section
on these matters in the FCO Departmental Report (2008-09), the
Committee has said that it would welcome further information.
2. The key historical point of reference
is the review of Public Diplomacy completed by Lord Carter of
Coles in 2005, which led to the establishment of a re-vamped Public
Diplomacy Board. The idea behind the PD Board was to create a
ministerially led body which would set the strategic direction
of UK public diplomacy; monitor and evaluate its outcomes and
make recommendations on resource allocation. The Carter Review
also led to the creation of a number of pilot projects (the PD
Pilots) designed to explore more effective and ambitious ways
of cross-working, especially between the FCO and the British Council.
3. When the current Foreign Secretary took
office in July 2007, he built upon this work, setting out the
case for an integrated campaigning approach to communications,
based upon using a full range of modern communications technologies
and techniques to engage publics around the world and applying
these across the FCO's diplomatic priorities. He told the FCO
Leadership Conference in March 2008: "Our global networks,
and London, need to focus not just on government relations but
business, media and citizen relations. Sometimes we need to use
public diplomacy to shape a debate and build consensus. At other
times it may have a more disruptive role challenging conventional
wisdom." The Foreign Secretary also urged the FCO to design
more ambitious engagement with UK citizens ("Bringing Foreign
Policy Home") and to adopt a parallel approach to the use
of integrated communications techniques within the FCO.
4. Against this background, the FCO appointed
a new Director of Strategic Communications in June 2008, with
a mission to implement the approach set out by the Foreign Secretary.
Ian Hargreaves, the Director, brought to this task a wide experience
of journalism across print, broadcast and online media, as well
as substantial experience of corporate communications and the
academic debate which informs these issues. He joined the FCO
on a fixed term, two-year contract.
5. In the 16 months since the new Director
took office, the FCO has reviewed all aspects of its approach
to communications and public diplomacy and made a number of far-reaching
changes, some of them quite recent. The key developments, in rough
date order, have been:
— A newly co-ordinated and converged structure
for FCO communications activities, (announced September 2008)
bringing together the following elements: a strengthened Press
Office; a strong, global digital diplomacy team to exploit the
FCO's 40-language web platform; a new "strategic campaigns"
unit, headed by an experienced Cabinet Office specialist in cross-government
campaigns; a re-shaped corporate communications team, with responsibility
for internal communications and relationships with FCO stakeholders
in the UK; a smaller public diplomacy unit, with a tighter focus
upon the work of the FCO's public diplomacy partnerships, including
those directly funded by the FCO (BBC World Service, British Council,
Wilton Park, scholarships and British Satellite News). The public
diplomacy team is also responsible for servicing the governance
machinery of the FCO's public diplomacy activities. These changes
were planned and are being delivered on a cost neutral basis.
— Internal reviews of public diplomacy
partners. These have led, so far, to a major strategy refresh
and strengthening of governance for Wilton Park and the closure
(on September 30, 2009) of British Satellite News. Wilton Park,
an Executive Agency, is now governed by a board, chaired for the
first time by a figure external to the FCO: Iain Ferguson (former
Chief Executive of Tate and Lyle) and with a new chief executive
(Richard Burge) also recruited from outside the FCO. BSN was established
in 1992 to provide UK news content to international broadcasters.
The demand for "newsreel" material delivered in this
manner has significantly diminished in recent years and BSN was
not cost-effective as a provider of video material for use on
the internet. This change should produce annual savings of up
to £1 million per annum. The FCO is already enjoying the
benefits of a more flexible, web-focused approach to video, currently
supplied by the Central Office of Information. The FCO focus with
our other two funded public diplomacy partners, British Council
and BBC World Service, has been on achieving a clear alignment
with our strategic public diplomacy goals, whilst not trespassing
upon the legitimate operational (or in the BBC's case editorial)
autonomy of either organisation. In the case of the British Council,
there has been successful joint working on complex global issues
such as climate change, counter terrorism and global economic
recovery (for example at the time of the G20 London Summit). The
FCO is also working closely with the Council on major projects
such as the Shanghai Expo in 2010 and in the approach to the 2012
London Olympics.
— Meanwhile the British Council has also
pursued significant re-shaping of its "back office"
to reduce costs and to allow for growth in its language teaching
services. With regard to BBCWS, investment in the BBC Arabic television
service and BBC Persian TV have been widely acknowledged as important
interventions in strategically challenging information markets.
This is all part of a significant programme of geographic re-focusing
by BBCWS, which continues in the context of structural decline
of listening to short-wave radio and significant growth potential
in television and on-line audiences in some markets.
— Replacement of the Public Diplomacy Board
by a Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy Forum, chaired
by the Foreign Secretary. The Foreign Secretary has agreed to
adjust the governance for public diplomacy within the FCO. Ministerial
oversight of public diplomacy and strategic communications will
be the responsibility of a new forum, chaired by the Foreign Secretary.
The Minister with Responsibility for Public Diplomacy (currently
Chris Bryant, Parliamentary Under-Secretary) will focus on providing
specific ministerial supervision of the relationship between the
FCO and its directly funded partners: especially BBCWS and the
British Council. The Foreign Secretary's new Strategic Communications
and Public Diplomacy Forum, which meets twice a year, is also
supported at the working-level by an increasingly active and effective
Public Diplomacy Partners Group, which meets at roughly six-week
intervals, under FCO chairmanship, and which is currently addressing
cross-cutting topics such as education, sport, science and events
such as the Shanghai Expo and London 2012 Olympics/Paralympics.
On a daily basis, FCO media, digital, public diplomacy, corporate
and strategic campaigns now meet to deliver an integrated approach
to the FCO's communications priorities.
6. These new arrangements are designed to
capture, on the one hand, the breadth of the integrated communications
work of the FCO, supervised by the new Forum, and the more specific
governance of directly funded PD partners. In short, I believe
that we have now succeeded in responding to Lord Carter's assessment
that the FCO needed to become more strategic and resource-conscious
in its pursuit of a more ambitious public diplomacy agenda. Our
campaigns currently extend across a very substantial and ambitious
range of the FCO's work, including: Afghanistan and Pakistan;
the low carbon economy; global economic recovery; Burma; UK reputation
in the Middle East; nuclear counter-proliferation; the Olympics;
the Commonwealth (in the run-up to CHOGM); the Arms Trade Treaty;
conflict prevention; Europe and international institutional reform;
along with a substantial programme of work within the UK, some
of it aimed at diaspora communities and embraced within the "Bringing
Foreign Policy Home" framework led by the Foreign Secretary.
A number of our campaigns involve working very closely with other
Government departments; the Act on Copenhagen campaign, for example,
is led by DECC.
The fact that our cross-government, converged
approach has proved of such interest to other foreign ministries
is testament to its growing reputation.
7. ***
8. ***
9. I am confident that the approach we have
now adopted is the right one. It enables us to deploy our campaigns
across the full range of media platforms, including the latest
digital channels; it enables us to plan in a converged and strategic
way both in the short and longer term; and it enables us to manage
our relationship with our many public diplomacy partners, but
especially those we fund directly, in a way which maximises the
benefit of those relationships. We would be happy to brief the
Committee in more detail on any of these matters.
22 October 2009
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