Political and Constitutional Reform CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Whitehouse Consultancy
Introduction
1. The Whitehouse Consultancy is a specialist political consultancy, advising clients how best to identify and approach key decision-makers in Westminster, Whitehall, the devolved nations and the institutions of the EU. Current clients include global corporations, leading European and national businesses, trade associations, education campaigning alliances, charities and other third sector bodies, media groups and environmental organisations.
2. The Whitehouse Consultancy is a member of the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC). We act at all times in accordance with its Code of Practice. We remain dissatisfied with the conflict of interest which the APPC has developed in seeking to be responsible both for self-regulation and at the same time promoting as a trade body the commercial interests of its sector. We would, therefore, like to see established an alternative mechanism for registration and regulation so that we can achieve our long-held ambition of resigning from the APPC.
3. As a matter of company policy, we have called for some years for the introduction of a Statutory Register of multi-client lobbying agencies and welcome the Government’s commitment to move ahead with such a Register.
4. We do, however, have profound reservations about the decision that has clearly been taken that such a Statutory Register will not be linked to a Statutory Code of Practice. We are also deeply concerned about the flawed manner in which officials have prepared for this consultation and the completely inappropriate and inflated status that has been afforded to the inefficient, ineffective, incompetent and now completely discredited so-called “UK Public Affairs Council” (UK PAC).
5. In answering below the questions posed by the Committee’s very welcome inquiry, we hope that the following remarks are helpful to the Committee in its important work.
The Committee’s Questions
Does the Government’s consultation paper represent a balanced approach to the idea of a statutory register?
Does the paper present the evidence in a balanced way?
6. No. The paper for example gives disproportionate weight to the views and experiences of the so-called “UK Public Affairs Council” (UK PAC), failing to mention that the leading national organisation, the Public Relations Consultants Association, resigned in despair at the serial incompetence of UK PAC and that many in the industry, including the Whitehouse Consultancy, consider UK PAC to be inefficient, incompetent, ineffective and overall to be thoroughly discredited.
7. UK PAC does not have and has never in fact had any mandate to speak for the industry, for the professional bodies in the industry, or for individual companies or consultants in the sector. It is quite wrong for it to have assumed and/or been afforded that status in its dealings with officials.
8. Furthermore, the Consultation Paper (Annex A, page 21) states that:
“UK PAC’s register is operational but is not fully populated. It is updated on a quarterly basis”
9. That statement is untrue on several counts. At the time of publication of the Consultation Paper the UK PAC register was not available as it had been withdrawn as a result of the outcry over the number of errors, omissions and redactions it contained. It has never been properly updated quarterly and even now publishes information in a substantially redacted format since it omits the additional information supplied by registrants to explain the real relationships behind collective and joint ventures, alliances, committees, and all-party groups. It also lists, in a potentially misleading manner, pro bono clients along with commercial clients, causing potential embarrassment for registrants and for their pro bono clients who in many cases would not wish those consulting the register to assume that they were using budget to pay for public affairs advice. The UK PAC register also publishes data in registry entries for the wrong quarter causing confusion and distress in equal measure.
10. The paper suggests that a proportionate approach is necessary and that only those who lobby on behalf of others should be included in the requirement to register. The paper fails to mention, for example, that this would leave outside the scope of the register individuals such as media moguls lobbying directly to achieve results designed to increase their already massive fortunes. The paper also fails to mention that the definition would also leave outside the scope of registration those clients to whom public affairs advice, rather than lobbying activity is provided. The Committee should be aware, as officials should have been in preparing this paper, that for multi client public affairs consultancies, this would remove from the register the overwhelming majority of their clients since clients are generally encouraged to do their own actual lobbying. Thus, unmentioned by the Consultation Paper, the introduction of a register based on this definition would dramatically reduce transparency and will infuriate those who have campaigned for greater openness.
11. The Minister, Mark Harper MP, speaking on 21 February at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), stated that he would wish to see a situation whereby any registrant omitting a client from the register would be “thrown off the register”. This would be understandable in the case of deliberate and intentional omission, but would be disproportionate in the case of administrative error, oversight, or technical problems (by which all industry registers currently in existence have been plagued).
12. Furthermore, such an approach would lead to a bizarre situation that failing to register a client could lead to serious damage to a registrant’s business as a result of a technical glitch, but the rejection in advance of a requirement that the Register be underpinned by a Statutory Code of Practice could mean that thoroughly unethical, though not otherwise technically illegal behaviour, would go completely unpunished. The Consultation Paper fails to explore how the Government might deal with the media explosion of outrage were an agency to be caught acting in a flagrantly unethical manner yet continue to benefit from the implicit kudos of statutory regulation.
13. The paper, in discussing deadlines for registration of new clients, suggests a 3 month deadline and although it quotes overseas examples of other timelines, fails to mention for example the timelines for Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords to register their own interests. Specifically the 28 day deadline imposed by the House rules for All-Party Parliamentary Groups to register outside benefits is a glaring omission which would have framed debate in a substantially different paradigm.
14. Finally, it is unclear whether by oversight or deliberate omission, but the failure to mention the role of the Information Commissioner as a potential holder of the proposed Statutory Register does appear odd. The current Chair of the so-called UK PAC, Elizabeth France, is a former Information Commissioner, and whilst she has personally lost all credibility through her mishandling of the UK PAC register, those individual and organisational failings should not rule out the current or future incumbents of the position of Information Commissioner being given responsibility for maintaining the proposed Statutory Register. This could be done at only moderate cost, within an organisation experienced in dealing with registration issues, and able also to bring experience of the application of tests of proportionality, public interest, and prospects of success to the consideration of the most appropriate way to deal with allegations of transgression against the rules of registration and/or of a Statutory Code of Practice.
15. In short, officials in preparing this Consultation Paper have produced a thoroughly distorted picture of the current situation in the industry and the practical implications of the specific proposals being brought forward.
Are you confident that the issues covered are ones on which the Government has an open mind?
16. No. Specifically, the Consultation Paper demonstrates that the officials who drafted it have taken a firm view that there should be no Statutory Code of Practice underpinning registration. We fully accept that the views of the Whitehouse Consultancy in supporting the introduction of a Statutory Code of Practice are in a minority within the lobbying profession, but this is a debate which needs to be had, and to be seen to be had publicly, not sidelined.
17. Furthermore, the proposed definition of lobbying would allow multi-client lobbying agencies, business consultants, lawyers and others, to decline to register the majority of their clients on the basis that they provide to them advice on how best to improve the effectiveness of their own lobbying, rather than lobbying on their behalf.
Is the Government clear wherever it has a preference for a particular option, and is this preference in each case a reasonable one?
18. No. Whilst officials have drafted the Consultation Paper in such a way as to appear that many issues are still open for discussion, the fundamental principles (rejection of a Statutory Code, a misplaced trust in UK PAC, a naive respect for industry self-regulation, a narrow definition of lobbying etc) have clearly been decided in advance and in many cases are not sensible for the reasons already set out above.
Does the consultation paper contain the right questions?
Is each of the questions asked in a balanced way?
19. No. For the reasons set out above.
Are there any important questions that are not asked?
20. Yes. There is no question about whether the Statutory Register should be linked to a Statutory Code of Conduct in, for example, a similar way to which registrants in the European Transparency Register are required to abide by a minimum set of standards of behaviour in a Code of Practice.
Which lobbying contacts are of greatest legitimate public interest?
Does the consultation paper envisage the capture of appropriate information about these contacts, as opposed to other kinds of contact?
21. If media moguls whose employees are caught up in criminal activity are not required to register when lobbying government at even Prime Ministerial level, one has to wonder why a charity (whose activities are already regulated in detail by the Charity Commission) simply taking advice on Parliamentary procedure, communications techniques, and consultation best practice and then being supported by professionals in lobbying meetings would have to be registered as a client of those advisors. Which, we wonder, has the greater implications for democracy?
How should the Government deal in policy and practice with how it might be lobbied on the issue of a statutory register of lobbyists?
How open should the Government be about such lobbying contacts?
22. The Government should be open and transparent about all lobbying it receives on this issue, declaring all such contact online. The Minister is to be greatly commended for his willingness to participate “on the record” at the recent meeting at RICS, but one can only wonder why the audience, the lobbying industry itself, was allowed to benefit from participation under the Chatham House Rule.
23. In 2010, the Whitehouse Consultancy sought repeatedly by email and telephone message to seek a meeting with officials handling the preparation of this consultation document, but received no response whatsoever to those repeated approaches. We are deeply disillusioned by that failure on the part of officials to engage with those holding a wide spectrum of views.
24. We are also appalled by reports that an organisation exercising its legitimate right to campaign for openness and transparency has been publicly commented upon by the official leading on this project in a most peculiar and, in our experience, unprecedented manner which, if the reports are accurate, undoubtedly brings the Civil Service into disrepute.
How should the Government analyse the consultation responses, and seek to balance the weight of opposing argument?
25. The Government should consider the response to this consultation with an open mind and should specifically stimulate further debate about the questions upon which officials appear to have taken a prejudicial view (Statutory Code of Conduct, definition of lobbying etc). It should cease to afford any weight whatsoever to the views of UK PAC which is thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the industry and transparency campaigners alike, and which has no further standing in this important debate.
Do you have any comments on how any proposals emerging from the consultation should be implemented?
26. Yes. A Statutory Register underpinned by a Statutory Code of Practice, funded by industry, and with a 28 day deadline for registration of new staff and clients should be implemented forthwith.
Conclusions
27. The Coalition Government and its ministers appear genuinely to want to deliver a new era of openness, transparency and accountability to the relationships (whether perceived or real) between government and lobbyists. This is to be welcomed. However, they have been badly let down by officials who have had an unhealthily close relationship with one discredited body, UK PAC; have failed to take a wider range of views into account in identifying options for consultation; have demonstrated an antagonistic and prejudiced view about some individual campaigners and the organisations for whom they speak; have sought to avoid the inevitable debate about whether a Statutory Register should be underpinned by a Statutory Code of Practice; and have in so doing created a very superficial and intrinsically distorted consultation paper.
The Key Tests:
28. What public policy objectives would be advanced by a new regulatory environment which saw a substantial reduction in the number of clients required to be registered by multi-client public affairs agencies; which allowed agencies demonstrating flagrantly unethical behaviour to continue to benefit, without the application of any sanction, from the implicit kudos of inclusion in a statutory register; and which failed the test of whether lobbying at the highest level by the likes of Rupert Murdoch should be registered?
February 2012