William Dinan, 12 December 2008

A recent series of Parliamentary Questions (PQs) from the Conservatives has shown that a wide variety of government bodies hire public relations firms to lobby their own government.

The Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC) is appalled that the Tories are now proposing to ban government agencies from hiring lobbyists. The APPC is urgently seeking a meeting with Nick Hurd after he told The Times that "the hiring of lobbyists by government bodies to grab more government cash is a financial scandal." This follows the circulation of a Conservative Party research document (pdf) showing that state-funded agencies had spent over £9.7 m on at least 71 separate contracts with lobbying firms over a five-year period. Hurd has proposed that, if the Conservative Party is elected, it would emulate the 1989 Byrd Amendment, which banned U.S. government agencies from hiring lobbyists.

This has brought the commercial lobbying industry out in defence of the public sector. Vivien Hepworth, UK executive chairman of Grayling Global, argues that the business of government has become more complex and that:

‘Those who are particularly interested in this area – be they politicians or journalists – should look specifically at these public sector contracts and inform themselves about the nature of the activity and talk to the commissioning organisations to establish the value and level of support that we can give. They will find that most of these public sector organisations are making efficient use of their funding in the balance between in-house resource and external consultancy expertise.’