Unspun: Mess with Government Comms at your Peril

Ed Amory | Issue 2 | Magazine

From the Archive

Those undertaking Dominic Cummings’ shake-up of government communications should not underestimate the persuasive power of Downing Street’s Nudge Unit

I’ve experienced the world of government communications from multiple different angles over my career. As a staffer in Conservative Central Office, I worked alongside department comms teams. As a journalist on the Mail for 12 years, I spent hours trying to extract information from unenthusiastic press officers. Then over the last eight years as a communications consultant, I had central government departments as clients.

So I was fascinated to read about Dominic Cummings’ reported plan to streamline government communications teams, with the apparent intention of cutting the numbers in any one department to an average of 30. Given that some currently have around 300 people working in marketing and communications, this would be a significant contraction as well as a further shift of power towards the centre, mirroring the process that has already taken place with special advisers.

With some of my former hats on, I have sympathy with those who want reform. When I was a journalist, many of my interactions with departmental press offices involved their determination not to answer my questions. It seemed hard to imagine that 300 people might be needed to achieve this. Then when I was a professional political communicator, I was often exasperated by the refusal of departmental press offices to join us in the trenches. More recently, as a consultant, it was noticeable that …

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