18 April 2011

The lobbying industry's attempt at proving that transparency is safe in its hands is so bad it should be taken offline.

The industry's voluntary register of lobbyists, overseen by the industry-run UK Public Affairs Council, is in its design a misleadingly incomplete record of the activities of lobbyists in the UK. However, the latest version, which according to its website went "live on 15th April", is now so wrong it should be shut down.

Entries for key lobbying agencies have disappeared, such as Cicero Consulting, which embarrassingly is run by Iain Anderson, head of one of the trade bodies responsible for the register. No entry either for Helen Johnson Consulting, the firm run by the chair of the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC), another industry group in charge of the register. College Public Policy, again run by members of the management committee of the APPC, is registered as a lobbying 'client' rather than a lobbying agency, and as such, lists no clients. Type the names of a number of key agencies into the search box - Weber Shandwick, Edelman, Citigate - and they variously exist as 'clients' or not at all.

'Riddled with errors, omissions, inconsistencies and redactions' is how one MP described the register at its launch. The 'Who's Lobbying blog' pointed out more problems with accuracy a month down the line. Nearly two months on and things appear to going from bad to worse. 

And this is the system that is being considered by the government as an alternative to a serious, robust compulsory register, which would allow people to see who is lobbying whom (bankers, private healthcare companies, media firms etc).

'Trust us' the lobbyists said to government, and then made a massive pig's ear out of it.