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Government Communications

My Lords, I, too, would like to thank my noble friend Lord Fowler for ensuring that the debate on this report takes place, and for his excellent chairmanship of our committee. We said in the report’s introduction that its purpose was to consider what progress has been made since the Phillis review was published in 2004, and to make recommendations for further improvements. The Phillis review report suggested seven main principles that should underpin all government communications, two of which are: ""Use of all relevant channels of communication, not excessive emphasis on national press and broadcasters"," and, ""Co-ordinated communication of issues that cut across departments, not conflicting or duplicated departmental messages"." These principles are relevant to the two subjects that I would like to address, first, regional newspapers and, secondly, the voluntary sector, concentrating on Citizens Advice and its bureaux. Here, I shall re-emphasise some of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, made in her final remarks. As an aside, it is worth noting that the voluntary sector is now absorbed into the third sector, thereby disguising in its title the all-important function of volunteering. Regional newspapers are already having a hard time owing to increasing competition from all sorts of digital media, even before the rapid shrinking of the economy which is affecting so many sectors. This makes it more important than ever that they should be able to receive timely news from government sources and not be regarded as an afterthought. Opinions vary on how much improvement there has been in communication with the regional press media over the past five years. Some say that there has been very little; others say that the quantity has improved but not the quality. This arises partly from a lack of understanding of the role or needs of the regional press, and the need for more media literacy among some of the press office teams in Whitehall and elsewhere. Another comment was that regional press releases can so often be copies of national press releases with a few local statistics added on, a far cry from the Phillis suggestion that each region should be able to do more than simply regurgitate Whitehall press releases. A suggestion was made that each region should have a cross-departmental head of communications who is based in the region and who understands it. This person should be both confident and well-informed enough to be able to brief quickly on a range of subjects. This suggestion is very much in line with the Phillis principle of communicating issues that cut across departments. A widely held view is that relations between the regional newspapers and government departments vary greatly. They can be very good when a department and the region have interests in common, and where the ministerial team realises the importance of regional media. Difficulties can arise when people working in departmental press offices have no idea how newspapers work and struggle to deal with deadlines. A frequent cry of pain can be heard from journalists who are sent from pillar to post. They start off calling the government press office, believing that is where the information is, only to be told to ring the regional office, which tells them that they are talking to the wrong people and should ring Whitehall. As a result what should have been a simple process becomes mired in confusion. Also, press offices in certain departments can be elusive and are keen to end a call as quickly as possible rather than try to be helpful. However, there is some good news: When press officers have been journalists themselves, they have a greater understanding of what is needed. Some departments take the initiative and will contact journalists with story ideas. Regional media emergency forums can produce clear and useful communications. To summarise, in our report the recommendation that addresses the problems that I have just highlighted says that regional press officers should be trained to have a better understanding of regional and local media, they should become more proactive in their engagement with the sector, and more senior officials and Ministers should be available for interviews. The government response says that the Permanent Secretary for Government Communications is committed to improving the level of engagement with local journalists and producers. As this is a huge commitment that affects all government departments, could the Minister please tell me in his response how successful this far-reaching commitment is likely to be? I turn now to Citizens Advice and its relations with government communications, although some of the comments will apply equally to others, especially umbrella organizations in the voluntary sector. Before going any further, I shall provide a few statistics, but I promise that they are the only ones that I shall mention. They are important, because they emphasise the size and reach of the citizens advice bureaux and illustrate the important contribution that they make. The bureaux dealt with nearly 2 million clients who presented about 5.5 million problems in 2007-08. Adviceguide, the Citizens Advice public information website, had about 9.5 million visitors with problems in the same year. There are 426 member bureaux with 16,000 volunteer staff, who all have to be trained; 4,000 new volunteers are trained each year, but it is made clear that many volunteers stay for a long time. The volunteer recruitment line received 12,000 new applications last year. This must show that the voluntary sector is alive and kicking. The reason why the word "bureau" has been dropped from the CAB’s official title will be because much of the advice it now give is on its public information website, Adviceguide, which, as well as providing direct advice, is also able to guide the user with links to relevant government information. However, it is made clear that this is not a case of one-size-fits-all. This is amply borne out by the number of inquiries made in person at the bureaux. On the government side, establishing Directgov as a single website portal is aimed at providing a starting point for individuals needing to find information about all government services and reducing the hassle of multiple sites with different designs and organisational approach. However, logging onto Directgov cannot overcome the lack of co-ordination between government departments or the complexity of form filling that challenges the individual inquirer or claimant. Also, a departmental website to which a link was provided by Directgov might appear inscrutable. For instance, the user might want an update on leaflets and find that there is nothing there. However, it is reassuring to note that Revenue and Customs is an exception, as it provides useful lists of leaflets and what has replaced them. The helpfulness or otherwise of the internet, whether it is Citizens Advice’s Adviceguide, or the Government’s Directgov, is inevitably restricted to the computer-literate who have internet access. Sections of the population cannot use these sources of information for other reasons, and they need to be able to talk to someone who can help them. CAB service users come from a variety of backgrounds, which will be familiar. Face-to-face users are most likely to be within the C2, D and E social classes, have long-term illness, live in social housing and/or are over 60. Added to these categories are those who cannot read or write, have mental health problems or do not speak English very well. That is a formidable list. As more and more government information is switched to the internet, departments must recognise how important it is for Citizens Advice to be able to keep its bureaux up to date. Changes to legislation which have to be communicated to the public by the Government often involve the CAB service as a distribution channel. It would be sensible for the government department concerned to bring Citizens Advice into the planning at an early stage. In this way, based on its experience, it can advise on whether the campaign makes sense and when it might be best to run it. Sometimes statutory instruments are published at the last minute, which does not leave enough time for amendments to CAB’s guidance to be published for the use of advisers and the public before the law is in force. Also Citizens Advice needs support from government departments to check their material to make sure that they get accurate information out to the bureaux in time. They find departments’ responses to this appeal for help inconsistent, which can often make it difficult to meet deadlines. A word on how Citizens Advice could help with the problem of unclaimed credits and benefits. This is very important, especially in view of the summing up of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, in today’s debate on the economy, in which he stressed the value of pensions. In the opinion of Citizens Advice, more could be done to find ways of distributing the £3 billion of unclaimed pension credit. That is such a large figure. It believes that a shared strategy could be crafted which would mean more openness and partnership between government and organisations it could trust to find new ways to reach those who are not responding to present methods. That will not happen unless the Government really want it to. Citizens Advice believes that this would be an excellent example of government communications really making a difference. To conclude, at a time when the Government are relying more and more on the internet for communicating with the public, special attention must be paid to the needs of those who cannot be reached by the web. The local voluntary services in general, and Citizens Advice in particular, are able to meet this need. They in turn are reliant on the Government making sure that they have prompt and accurate access to new information. Allied to this is the need for departments to involve the voluntary sector in forward planning and also being prepared to check their material for accuracy so that it can be disseminated in good time. I would be grateful if the Minister could reassure me that these matters are being taken seriously by government departments and that progress is being made in these important areas.