CorpComms Magazine

If lobbyists felt the initial calls for greater regulation were analogous to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, the recommendations of the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) pretty much steamrollered over the lobbying community's hopes for a self-regulatory solution.

The findings of the PASC inquiry were released in January after a six-month long investigation into lobbying practices in the UK. The inquiry, the first of its kind since the 1991 report from the Select Committee on Members' Interests, was launched in the wake of a string of controversial 'cash for access' scandals involving UK lobbyists and politicians. 

Among other things, the PASC report slammed the 'disparate' industry organisations and bemoaned the lack of cases being brought for investigation. 

The report proposes lobbyists be regulated by a single industry-funded body and recommends a statutory register of lobbying activity detailing contact between lobbyists and decision makers. Information would include details such as diary records and minutes of meetings. If implemented by the government, the proposals could lead to compulsory disclosure of all meetings and conversations held between decision makers and outside interests.

Lobbyists have greeted the report with mixed reactions. Critics argue that as well as being logistically difficult, a statutory list detailing all conversations could be counterproductive. 

'Firstly, we welcome the committee's acceptance that lobbyists are not just agencies but in-house public affairs practitioners, lawyers and management consultants,' comments chair of the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC), Robbie MacDuff. 'However, defining lobbyists in legal terms will be an issue for government to resolve as I don't think it's been done clearly yet.' 

Peter Bingle, chairman of public affairs at Bell Pottinger is less complimentary. 'The PASC inquiry should never have happened,' he retorts. 'Self-regulation works well and we have a system of government which is the envy of the world. We should praise our political system rather than seek to undermine it. The PASC has produced a report that is going nowhere fast.'

Bingle is not the only one who has expressed an element of despair about the report's findings. 'The whole inquiry all started with concerns about firms like Bell Pottinger that don't publish their client lists. Then the committee started probing the revolving door issue and eventually these issues started to distract what the committee was about,' explains John Lehal, managing director of Insight Public Affairs. 

As the inquiry progressed, MPs became increasingly concerned by the number of ministers switching between lobbying and political office. 'Former ministers appear to be able to use with impunity the contacts they built up as public servants to further a private interest,' the committee said. 

A WIDE REMIT

'I was surprised by the proposal that all contact with government should be published - this could affect anyone that comes into contact with a member of parliament. As well as being burdensome, it could effectively disenfranchise charities with limited resources,' Lehal adds. 

'Bureaucracy is all very well but I think it could damage the policy-making process. Civil servants could become reticent if all dialogue and contact becomes public and this is not in the interests of democracy. At the same time, self-regulation is only good if everyone in the industry signs up.'

A spokesperson for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) welcomed the plans for greater transparency but recognised the problems associated with far-reaching disclosure obligations.

'We believe that all organisations, regardless of sector, should be open and transparent in their dealings with government and parliament to ensure that the background and purpose of their dialogue is clear. A register of lobbyists would be a positive step forward, as long as it is not excessively burdensome in terms of administrative costs,' she says.

WHO IS IN CHARGE?

Industry bodies the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), the APPC and the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) had hoped that when they drew up of a set of guiding principles, it would stave off calls for robust regulation but the government has so far not endorsed the principles. 

In addition, the committee concludes that although the principles are a 'welcome step', they are also 'something of a lowest common denominator' because 'they contain no requirement to produce public client lists'.

'The report definitely went further than expected and I think most of our members would disagree with many of the conclusions. We went to the committee making the case that self-regulation works and is effective and I think it's wrong to argue self-regulation doesn't work,' comments Francis Ingham, director general and managing director of the PRCA. 

Yet the report is damning about the existing voluntary self-regulatory framework calling it 'little better than the emperor's new clothes'. 

'A complaints system that was working would have produced more than three cases in the last ten years, even if the vast majority of lobbyists were operating ethically and transparently,' the committee argues in its report. By contrast, it noted that the Advertising Standards Authority resolved 23,953 complaints in 2007. 

MacDuff refutes the committee's argument. 'It's illogical to argue that if you have a self regulatory regime which isn't reprimanding agencies then it is not working. On the contrary, our system discourages undesirable conduct and works very well,' he says. 

BIG CRITICS 

As well as being sceptical about the fragmented nature of the industry, the committee also criticises the APPC for expecting complainants to bear the cost of an investigation.

'The inquiry happened because the lobbying industry turned on itself over the issue of APPC membership. It is therefore ironic that the APPC comes out so badly in the committee's report. The time is now right for the leading members of the industry to come together and start again. We need a powerful voice making the case for the lobbying industry,' Bingle asserts.

MacDuff feels the APPC was unfairly criticised in the report. 'I don't think the committee members really understood the purpose of our organisation,' he says. 'We suffered because we didn't get as much airtime to present to the committee as others like, for example, the pro democracy lobby.'

'The committee was wrong in saying that we are a trade association and a regulator and that that creates a conflict of interests. We don't provide any trade association services at all,' he adds.

Ingham welcomes the committee's positive stance on Consultancy Management Standard (CMS), however, an internationally accredited hallmark developed by the PRCA. 

He says: 'We will build on the success of the CMS, which is now adopted standard for 14 countries around the world and we want to work with the APPC and the CIPR more closely.' The association also plans to open up its membership to in-house teams over the next few months.

The lobbying community has some work to do if it is to convince the government that self-regulation is viable. Fundamentally, any regulation will fail if it doesn't apply to the whole industry and lobbyists may need to make more concessions to keep critics at bay. While the government would have to be very determined to invoke a permanent regulator, the lobbying community will need work hard to speak as a coherent unit. 

'Six months is an unrealistic timeframe. We spent 14 months working on the guiding principles,' MacDuff explains. 'With the newly expanded definition of lobbyist, we will need much longer to generate real consensus.'  

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