Some thoughts from David Seers
David Seers at the Central Office of Information
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Central Office of Information. David Seers, Director of Broadcast, outlines here the pivotal role the COI plays in the increasingly complex world of government communications. Before joining the COI in 2004, David spent eighteen years in television commercials production.
In 1946, then Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced that official information services had, under modern conditions, ‘an important and permanent part in the machinery of government’. That remains as true today as it did six decades ago. Even many of the subject matters remain broadly the same - for example, in our first year we were producing campaigns on armed forces recruitment and sexual health. Government then has quite a track record when it comes to the complexity of creating integrated campaigns and this is something that needs to be understood by anyone looking to work on government communications.
Two recent IVCA initiatives, the Recommended Code of Practice and MAPCOM’s emphasis on ‘Assisting the Public Sector’, were well overdue and are to be highly commended. Government campaigns often make unique demands on suppliers and these initiatives at least recognise some genuine needs among IVCA members.
The world of government communications is a very mixed bag indeed and the occasional frustrations that IVCA members express from their dealings with ‘the government’ are perhaps understandable. However, if the unique set of circumstances that prevail within government are not fully appreciated, then approaches to it as a potential supplier can be perilous. The major suppliers, for whom the public sector is core, already know this but the COI has always had a unique position from which to add real value to the process.
Around the time the IVCA was being born Bob Dylan was telling us how the times are a-changin’ and in that song he warned, ‘don’t criticise what you don’t understand.’ This is sound advice as there are many things that need to be borne in mind when dealing with central government; our communications are produced in an environment that differs from the private sector, our audiences are often beyond the concern of commercial enterprise and ‘the government’ is not a single entity.
For 60 years COI has offered a shared resource across Whitehall departments to help deal with these complexities, through a combination of private sector experience and public sector knowledge. Our television and radio department is made up of practising, professional producers, not just procurers or project managers. We are specialist practitioners who do actually know how to make this stuff. These are not skills that are readily available within departments and, if they so choose, departments can come to COI to facilitate their production requirements. Not only are we producers, we are government communicators too and so there is real value for both clients and suppliers when COI is involved in the relationship. We make no apology either for our position within that relationship. As guardians of the public purse we drive the private sector harder to ensure the public sector gets more bangs for its bucks.
Since even before the COI, UK governments have been running sophisticated visual communications campaigns. Suppliers therefore should not regard the public sector as a soft option next to the hard-boiled ‘realities’ of the business world. Nor is it a handy stopgap when that particular sector is a bit slow. It’s a grown up, well established operation with its own particular needs that has to be spoken to appropriately.
The IVCA Code of Practice is an interesting case in point. It’s a noble effort but does fall short of what could have been a more robust piece of work that resonates across the industry. Compare it for example with the agreed procedures for producing television commercials. Updated this year by client body ISBA, but introduced twenty years ago, they run to almost 100 pages and contain standard documentation for estimates, production and insurance briefing forms, contracts and the like. Adopted by agencies, clients and production companies they form the basis for transparent, consistent and effective production. The corporate sector is still a long way behind in this respect, as is evidenced by the complaints of uneven practices from both sides.
I’m sure that MAPCOM went some way to shedding light for IVCA members on the particular challenges presently facing government communications. In addition, the Code of Practice will at least offer something for people to point to in an effort to improve working practices so that we can all work together more efficiently, effectively and creatively for another sixty years.
