7 September 2012

The BBC reports today that the government is increasing the amount it spends on advertising and PR next year "to help it sell NHS changes and other policies to the public."

The government's 2012-13 marketing budget is £285m, according to the Cabinet Office.

But what's most concerning is not so much the vast amount of money the government is still spending on PR, but where that money is going.  

PR and lobbying firms, which predominantly act on behalf of corporate interests, are seeing growth in government contracts for something called 'stakeholder   engagement'. In plain English this means spending on campaigns to persuade the public of the wisdom of the government's reform programme.

Take Grayling, the industry leader in public sector communications. It saw its income from government communications contracts decline last year. But it's predicting that it will be able to cash in from the government's need to sell its unpopular reforms to a skeptical public. James Ford of Grayling says: Those organisations that need to undergo some degree of service change need to talk to the public about it, and that's where we're using our comms expertise." It's even launched a new division, Grayling Engage to provide "public consultation and engagement" work.

Public consultations by the PR industry are often anything but. Typically, they're used to dissipate protest and opposition. The supermarkets and big house builders are old hands at it.  

But this isn't the end of the story. Grayling is part of a larger group called Huntsworth, which is owned by Lord Chadlington, who is David Cameron's neighbour. Hunstworth has a number of lobbying firms, with many private sector clients – Capita, Nuffield Health, BT among others – who are set to win big from the government's reform programme.

So, the very firms who have been lobbying behind closed doors on behalf of private sector clients looking to clean up from the reforms, are now being employed by the taxpayer to sell the reforms to us.  

This is a deceitful way to govern.