Took a party of MA PR students to the Department of Communities communications department last Friday. A great overview of government and departmental communications from George Eykyn, Director of Communications and his team, including presentations on several social marketing/public information programmes and a tour of the media office.
The visit included an overview on clearly one of the government's major online projects, Gov.UK "the best way to get to government services and information." Currently in Beta this starts to be rolled out this Autumn and Communities is one of the pioneering government departments. It is using open source software so allowing a range of organisations and users to contribute to its development and access to the site is essentially driven by search. It would appear to be drawing on influences of the symantic web as it is allowing users to access a significant number of different databases - both local and national - to present information in a clear and straightforward way to users. In design and concept a very interesting and innovative project which is apparently attracting interest from other countries.
I came away from the visit very impressed. The coherence of the online strategy was unexpected and this may well reflect the influence of Martha Lane Fox as the UK's digital champion. A real sense that there is some very good strategic thinking in government communications going on behind the scenes (influence of Phillis report and Prof.Anne Gregory?). What was also surprising and good to see, was the traditions of "impartial" public information communications still survive - I thought that had disappeared with Alistair Campbell's time as government communications supremo and the general politicisation of the communications function. However, the model adopted is that departmental communications attempt to be politically neutral with political elements added by the special advisors on behalf of the Minister such as for a speech but if the speech goes on the departmental web site then all the political comments are deleted. A form of Chinese communications wall? UK government communications has always had a very strong reputation in international PR circles and the work in Department of Communities suggests this continues.
In fact, there are several talks on government communications at the forthcoming University of Bournemouth History of PR conference in July so it will be useful to have a stronger historical perspective on changing practices and international perspectives.
The visit included an overview on clearly one of the government's major online projects, Gov.UK "the best way to get to government services and information." Currently in Beta this starts to be rolled out this Autumn and Communities is one of the pioneering government departments. It is using open source software so allowing a range of organisations and users to contribute to its development and access to the site is essentially driven by search. It would appear to be drawing on influences of the symantic web as it is allowing users to access a significant number of different databases - both local and national - to present information in a clear and straightforward way to users. In design and concept a very interesting and innovative project which is apparently attracting interest from other countries.
I came away from the visit very impressed. The coherence of the online strategy was unexpected and this may well reflect the influence of Martha Lane Fox as the UK's digital champion. A real sense that there is some very good strategic thinking in government communications going on behind the scenes (influence of Phillis report and Prof.Anne Gregory?). What was also surprising and good to see, was the traditions of "impartial" public information communications still survive - I thought that had disappeared with Alistair Campbell's time as government communications supremo and the general politicisation of the communications function. However, the model adopted is that departmental communications attempt to be politically neutral with political elements added by the special advisors on behalf of the Minister such as for a speech but if the speech goes on the departmental web site then all the political comments are deleted. A form of Chinese communications wall? UK government communications has always had a very strong reputation in international PR circles and the work in Department of Communities suggests this continues.
In fact, there are several talks on government communications at the forthcoming University of Bournemouth History of PR conference in July so it will be useful to have a stronger historical perspective on changing practices and international perspectives.
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