"You will be leading a team of about 30..."
Come again? Now before anyone accuses me of slagging off the public sector, let me make it clear that I support the existence of the Electoral Commission. I believe it has quite a difficult job to do, which is sometimes made more difficult by the government's total refusal to implement many of its recommendations. I know some people that work there and they are people of great talent.
However, no one could persuade me that the Electoral Commission can possibly justify a Communications team of 30 people. When I had some dealings with them in 2001-2 their Communications team was a fraction of that. What has changed? If I were an MP, I'd be asking some very serious questions about both the funding, remit and structure of the Electoral Commission.
Or am I wrong? If someone from the Electoral Commission (possibly from their Communications team!) would like to get in touch and persuade me of the error of my ways I'll be happily to post their viewpoint.
UPDATE: I am told that expenditure by the Electoral Commission was £7 million in 2001-02. In this financial year it will be £26 million. Quite astonishing.
13 comments:
I'm in PR, after a fashion, and in all of my dealings with household name companies etc, I'm yet to encounter a comms team anything like as big as 30....
No personal evidence to share, expect that my employer's communication team includes everyone who designs consultation documents and sends them out and receives responses prior to handing them on to people dealing with them and so on.
Could be a lot more than the "PR" team for an organisation that has to deal with so many and often fractious consultations.
Though it's admittedly still less than 30 including staff who run litho machines and websites for an organisation of 2000+ employees.
I'm also in PR and only the top 20 PR consultancies number over 30 PRs. Most big international companies can get by with teams of less than 10 (including support staff).
I'm not surprised though, HM Revenue & Customs has 50 plus.
Thirty is outrageous. However:
--A massive amount of the Commission's time and budget is wasted on public awareness campaigns which overlap with DCA propaganda.
--Many of the 30 are probably involved in this work.
--The Commission's Chairman, Sam Younger, wants to ditch public awareness work.
--MPs should press the ongoing Cttee for Standards in Public Life inquiry into the Commission to ensure that the Commission loses this pointless part of its remit.
--I have now doubt SY would accept such a recommendation with open arms.
--Many of the 30 could be sent to pasture.
The thing about the electoral commission is that they know naff all about politics and are hated by people in all parties. They have been described to me as "Labour's greatest mistake" - by a senior party member.
I don't know for sure but I expect the 30 would include a substantial Outreach team who work with local authorities (sometimes seconded to them) to help engage with young people and other members of the community. I don't think it refers to Press Office.
The electoral commission is a massive waste of time and money. There are some important issues that it should be looking at in terms of electoral law but it is staffed by people who have no experience of professional electioneering. A few former party professionals (from all parties) who could relate the grand schemes proposed with reality would be a big help.
This is particularly astonishing given that the much of the Electoral Commission's work in recent years has surrounded abortive projects, eg:
* Devising the question for and running the public awareness campaign for the referendum on a North-East Assembly, lost by a margin of 4-1.
* Devising the question for the proposed referendum on the EU constitution, later shelved.
* Devising a draft question for a referendum on the Euro, now seemingly shelved indefinitely.
* Carrying out preparatory work on a new electoral system following the report of the Jenkins' Commission in 1998, kicked permanently into that part of St James's Park where they can't quite get the mower.
Come now, Labour's had pretty good value for that money.
There are upcoming public hearings as part of the Committee on Standards in Public Life's Inquiry into the Electoral Commission, details at:
Committee on Standards
This and other similar evidence makes Osbourne's comments that the likelihood of cutting waste is "unconvincing" so irritating. Those whose jobs would be threatened by a new broom know who they are, why don't we be honest about where and how we plan to cut waste. The figures should be in billions. At some point the Tory approach will be properly perceived as "gutless".
I'm sorry Iain, you're not eligible. The Electoral Commission have a strict policy of only employing people who know nothing whatsoever about real politics. If you've had anything to do with a political party for 10 years, they won't have you.
I would think it good value if they had stopped postal voting fraud or the other Birmingham style frauds. Or indeed if they mentioned that winning an election on 36% of the vote is outrageous. No price is to high to pay for an honest system.
If....
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