We have received the following from the Cabinet Office:

This review group chaired by Bob Phillis (and set up by the Government in
response to the Public Administration Select Committee's recommendation for
a radical external review following the Sixsmith/Moore affair) is today
issuing its call for written evidence.


And the review web site also went live today

http://www.gcreview.gov.uk/

Could I ask the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association to
draw this to the attention of the members of the Association with the
invitation to contribute (individually or as a group as you prefer)
as set out in the attachments above.
Many thanks
David Wilkinson
020 7270 3003

The text of the attachment follows:



CABINET
OFFICE

GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS REVIEW GROUP
70 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2AS
Chairman – Bob Phillis
        Secretary: David Wilkinson Website: www.gcreview.gov.uk

        Telephone: 020-7276 3003  e-mail: david.wilkinson@cabinet-
office.x.gsi.gov.uk



26 February 2003


Dear Sir or Madam,

Please excuse the impersonal nature of this letter, but it is necessitated
by the very large number of individuals to whom I am writing.

You may have seen from recent reports in the media that the Government has
instituted an independent and radical review of Government Communications.
I have been asked to Chair this review and am now writing to see whether
you, or the organisation that you represent, would like to submit any
evidence or views to assist the Group in its deliberations.

Terms of Reference

Douglas Alexander MP, Minister of State in the Cabinet Office, set up this
review group:

“to conduct a radical review of government communications.  This will
include the examination of different models for organising and managing the
government’s communication effort, the effectiveness of the current model
based on the Government Information and Communication Service, and the
roles played by other civil servants including those special advisers who
have a responsibility for communications.”



What do we mean by a radical review?

At our first meeting on 14th February, the Group debated the “radical”
agenda that we have been explicitly invited to address.  We agreed to take
things in three stages:

i. Ideally, and if we were able to start from a clean sheet of paper,
what would be the key features of a government communication system?
ii. What do we see as the obstacles and constraints that prevent the
current system operating to our ideal specification?
iii. How do we think we should go about achieving something that
approximates as closely as possible to our ideal?

Throughout the review, the Group will be refining its thinking on these
three first order questions.  We would particularly welcome contributions
to the review that address these questions, and the key issues identified
in our initial discussions.

What do we think the key issues are?

We had before us a comprehensive list of issues from which we distilled
what we considered to be the five priority themes around which to organise
our thinking and our evidence taking and these are listed below.

1. Context

What is the impact of the context in which government communications now
take place? Large, growing, competitive, global, 24/7 media - voracious for
news, comment and controversy.  Politics now in an era of “permanent
campaigning” and communications an integral part of policy analysis and
development and the delivery of outcomes across the public services.

2. Needs of Different Groups of People

How and when do different groups of people want to receive information and
what is the role for the media (television, radio, national regional and
local newspapers, specialist magazines, internet web sites) who act as
filters and interpreters?  How transparent are the original sources of
information to the final consumer? What might be the best mix for
delivering messages to the public? When should government communicate
directly with the general public, when should government pay to communicate
(eg advertising campaigns), and when should it put out information through
the print and broadcast media?

3. Quality and Credibility

What do the general public – as citizens and electors – know and believe,
and whom do they trust?  The spirit of the age is cynical – how are
government communications perceived on the spectrum from spin to objective,
factual information? What is the impact of regulation such as the
impartiality requirements placed upon television news?  How good is direct
access to factual government information for the media and the general
public? What is the quality and timeliness of communications and
information across government departments and to individual ministers?

4. Politicisation

What are the different roles of the permanent civil service, with their
codified duty to conduct themselves with integrity, impartiality and
honesty, and special advisers, who are personal appointments by Ministers
and who are expressly relieved of the duty to be politically impartial?
What can the two groups do and what should they be able to do and where
should the lines of management, responsibility and accountability be drawn?
What is the ideal relationship at the top between the Head of GICS (who is
a permanent civil servant) and the Director of Communications and Strategy
at No 10 (who is a special adviser)?

5. Organisation and Professionalism

How best can the communication service be organised within departments and
across government as a whole? Currently the professional communicators are
dispersed across departments - all of which have their own Communication
Directorates - with a small GICS corporate unit at the centre.  How can
levels of performance be improved and maintained at consistently high
levels and how can the communication service sustain a professional career
path within government?  How should the career development and training
offered to members of the GICS be managed and how should the importance of
communication be reflected in the career development of other civil
servants?

How can you help?

1. We will, of course, take full account of all written contributions
we receive, including any that tell us that we have missed out issues that
they regard as central.  But it would greatly assist us in our task if, so
far as possible, submissions could be organised under the five headings
above.


2. We would invite contributions to be made as quickly as possible so
that they can inform our deliberations and help us decide those from whom
we should seek oral evidence.


3. The deadline for submissions will be 2 May but, as I have just
explained, we will greatly welcome submissions before then.


4. We look forward to receiving your contributions.  The quality of
our report will depend to a large extent on the quality of the response to
this call for written evidence.  We are confident that we will not be
disappointed.


5. Please do not forget to make clear whether you want your submission
to be kept confidential or whether you are content for it to be made
accessible to others, not least through the Review web site.

If you want more information, please visit our web site at
www.gcreview.gov.uk from where you will be able to submit evidence
electronically.   If you want to submit your views in writing, please send
them to:
  Paul Ballinger
Room 118
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS

Thank you.


ROBERT PHILLIS
Chairman