I tried asking that to roomful of Foreign Office diplomats yesterday, at a Chatham House seminar (part of the Institute’s program on Redefining the UK’s International Ambitions and Choices ahead of the election – David and I are writing one of two concluding reports, on ‘organising for influence’; the other, by Paul Cornish, will be on UK security and defence policy).
It’s not an altogether flippant question. Various countries (especially from the former Soviet Union) have decided not to bother with embassies in the UK, electing simply to hire Bell Pottinger instead. Other countres go for a both / and approach: China, for instance, has an extensive global network of posts, but also a large account with APCO Worldwide.
Granted, there are some areas in which it makes sense to keep things in house. Managing bilateral relationships with other government’s isn’t something you can easily outsource. And knowing how to operate in multilateral processes is something you only really learn inside a government – sure, you can hire a lobbyist to help you with (say) WTO negotiations, but chances are that what makes them a good operator in that arena is time spent working for a government.
But campaigning work on global issues – trying to create the conditions internationally for an ambitious climate deal, for instance – mightn’t that be the sort of thing at which a communications consultancy might actually be better than the Foreign Office?
The answer I got back from a senior diplomat was-pronged. First, he said PR consultants are a worse deal because they’re expensive and offer poor value for money. (Hmm – not like this has stopped government from hiring consultants in other areas, and besides, in these fiscally straightened times it’s actively helpful to be able to notch costs up to the programme budget rather than the admin budget.)
But the second part of his answer was more interesting. PR firms, he said, are hampered in their capacity to set narratives and agendas on global issues because “they lack credibility by dint of being for sale”. Now, I’m pretty open to this argument – it’s why I struggled to take Edelman seriously when they said they wanted a “dialogue” about coal-fired power stations last year. But as another participant at the seminar pointed out, the problem with the credibility / consistency argument is that it cuts both ways.
Take, for instance, what the UKsays about corruption in developing countries – and then contrast with the UK government’s initial stance when British Aerospace got hauled on charges of bribery in developing countries. Or what the UK says about civilian protection in Afghanistan – and then contrast with missile strikes. Or what the UK says about human rights – and how it’s acted over Binyam Mohamed.
The other question that comes to mind – are the skills needed for creating global narratives and setting global agendas really the same ones needed for bilateral relationship management and multilateral lobbying? In big communications firms, after all, the people who work on public affairs – lobbying – are separate from those who work on public relations; different skill-sets, different teams.
True, these days the FCO has a specialist Strategic Communications team. But guess what – they’re largely recruited from outside. It’s a short hop from there to outsourcing…
