Some thoughts from Ian Morrison
Ian Morrison, Chairman of Carlyle Media and Director of Skillset, the UK national Sector Skills Council for the audio-visual industries
The recent launch of the government’s Engage programme is one step along a road that started with the question: ‘how can government communications engage better with the general public?’ It’s encouraging that the question has been asked, because the record of government communications in the last decade has been, to put it charitably, mixed.
While it has acquired a considerable mastery of press relations - albeit at some cost in credibility - government’s internal communications have remained poor and when it comes to talking directly to the general public, it struggles more frequently than it should. Successes like the Department of Health’s anti-smoking campaign are more than balanced by some indifferent web communication, some ill-advised advertising campaigns and too much poorly thought-through use of visual media. Much can be done to improve government communications at a technical level and provided we can get past some of government’s more opaque procurement practices, there is a lot of help that members of this Association could give.
However, this doesn’t tackle some much deeper issues. The last twenty five years have seen the pace of change in our society accelerate to a remarkable degree. Government is not an institution designed to move quickly and it has struggled to adapt to constantly shifting circumstances. Advances in communications technology alone have changed the face of the world. Speed of communication is everything and there have been massive shifts in the way that we get news, opinions, entertainment and information. All of this has contributed to a frantic quality to our lives and has pressured governments into feeling they need to take action constantly.
This represents a sea-change in government behaviour and has a very serious side to it - one with big implications for any democracy. The percentage of the electorate that votes at a General Election is, by any standards, too low for comfort. Fifty years ago, it was 84% and it was still 77.7% in 1992. But it was only 61.3% in 2005, just fractionally better than the 59.4% of 2001, and reflects the increasing number of those alienated from government and from the process by which it is appointed. No democracy can feel at ease with that figure. Especially not the present government, which got voted into power by a mere 21.59% of the electorate.
This reflects a striking degree of disaffection with, and indifference to, both the political parties and the government machine - particularly by the young. Politicians wringing their hands and mouthing pieties about finding ways to engage young people are missing the point. A disturbingly large number of young people don’t want to be engaged. In fact, they don’t want to know. If government is to reach the disillusioned, it will have to abandon the paternalistic approach that has traditionally characterised its communications.
One of the problems we face as a society is that modern Britain has been built on 19th century institutions. Government, Parliament, the main political parties, the Civil Service, the professions - they’re all creatures of the nineteenth century. True, they have adapted and changed along the way, but the fact remains that they are institutions designed for a very different society from our own. Have they reached a stage where radical surgery is required if they are to survive? Probably. Evolution is the democratic way, but evolutionary change no longer works if it’s out of kilter with societal change. That is the problem government is facing at the moment and it does not appear to be handling the challenge with any sureness of touch.
It is in this context that the Engage programme needs to be seen. If government’s communications are to become more effective, it is essential that the growing discontent that has developed between government and the governed is addressed. It is in the nature of any bureaucracy that its approach is as paternalistic as its 19th century roots would suggest. If the Engage programme is to be successful, it will have to address this aspect of the way that government communicates. This is not on the superficial level of adjusting technique, but on a much deeper level where government trusts us with knowledge and credits us with understanding.
The business of government has become extremely complex. That makes change difficult and the communication of government’s business a particularly challenging task. When any task is awkward, there is a temptation to use blandness and obfuscation to make it easier. Which would not be in the spirit of Engage.
