Public Relations | ukwatch.net

The Police force with no crime

tim — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:57:06 +0000

Northumbria Police is one of Britain’s biggest and busiest forces. It employs more than 4,000 officers and has a budget of around £320 million a year. Of that, more than £1 million is spent on its PR department. However, as a freelance journalist based in Northumberland, I am frequently amazed at how peaceful the area is – or at least if you believe the force’s press office. Despite the force now paying to staff its press office on Saturdays and Sundays, there are whole weekends when not one crime is released to the media.

It would be easy to argue that, as a journalist, I only believe in the police being more open because it will help me to do my job. Yes, that’s true. But there is a more fundamental principle here and that is the age-old tradition of the police using the media to warn the public about what is going on – and to help them catch criminals.

For the last decade, I have campaigned for Northumbria Police to be more open with the public – i.e. the people who pay their wages. I have collected hundreds of examples of serious crimes that have either not been released to the media or have been released weeks or even months later.These include rapes, armed robberies and other horrendous attacks that have been kept hidden from the public.

After having a number of meetings with the Chief Constable Michael Craik over the years, I have been repeatedly promised the service would improve. And yes, the budget for the press office, has been boosted – growing from £620,000 two years ago to the £1 million it now consumes. There has also been a big increase in the number of stories about how senior officers are cutting crime figures.

Indeed, every time there is a horrific crime – such as a murder or a knife attack – the PR machine kicks into life with a quote from a senior officer stressing how “rare” such crimes are. As well as stretching credibility, some of these statements are appallingly insensitive. One chief inspector recently went as far as describing a double murder as an “isolated incident”.

In fact, it would appear they are cutting them so dramatically that one recent weekend saw not one crime worthy of being given out by Northumbria. Not one incident from Friday afternoon to Monday morning that was worth putting on the tape-recorded telephone “voice-bank” which journalists now have to rely on for their information. However, through an application under the Freedom of Information Act, I discovered there had been more than 4,800 incidents that weekend, including 161 serious crimes. So why may you ask were none of these released to the public ?

A good question – and one I’ve been trying to have answered for nearly 10 years now. In the past, I have taken the liberty of occasionally writing to or telephoning the senior officer concerned. There then usually followed a reasonable and well-mannered debate in which they would either quote particular “operational reasons” or admit there was no good reason why the public had not been warned.

But now, following the publication of a series of articles in The Guardian, The Times, Press Gazette and other publications, I have been banned from even daring to ask such questions. In a letter, Deputy Chief Constable David Warcup claims crimes are not released for “operational reasons” and the force does not have to “justify” such decisions. Needless to say, my correspondence on the issue now goes unanswered.

As a journalist with more than 23 years’ experience – most of it spent specialising in crime – I appreciate there are times when crimes might have to be held back for genuine “operational reasons”. But there is no way they have to be held back in such huge numbers. No, the simple truth is that the £1 million spent on Northumbria’s press office is more interested in promoting the image of the force’s senior officers.

My contacts tell me that, as part of that strategy, they have to reduce the “fear of crime” and, if that means telling the public less, then so be it. Mr Warcup recently defended the force’s expenditure on PR by saying: “Although crime in Northumbria has fallen significantly in the past 10 years, our research shows that the perception of crime has not. “We have therefore invested a significant amount in services which aim to make sure people have a better understanding of crime in their region.” In other words, he is spending more money making sure people believe the crime figures they put out.

Ironically, since the publication of my comments, I have been contacted by a number of police contacts who agree with my stance. Like me, they are not anti-police. However, as well as being police officers, they are also members of the public – and taxpayers. And, like me, they believe that, in a democracy, the likes of Mr Warcup should have to justify why the public are kept in the dark about what is happening in their area.

BAE’s frantic flag-waving

tim — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:16:40 +0000

BAE has launched a new advertising campaign, its first for more than five years. The company claims that ‘It is not a knee-jerk reaction to the negative press and the SFO inquiry’. The campaign includes adverts in a selection of national and regional newspapers, ‘giant mobile poster sites’ in regions where it has a ‘significant industrial presence’ and advertising wraps on taxis in Farnborough and London.

The basic campaign image is the Union Jack, which seems a little rich considering two company trends. Firstly, BAE Systems is moving into the US as fast as it can. The number of BAE employees in the UK is steadily decreasing while the number of BAE employees in the US is rapidly increasing, overtaking the number of UK employees in 2006. BAE may happily become a US company if the opportunity arose. Secondly, BAE is increasingly subcontracting work to lower-cost countries. For example, BAE’s signature Hawk aircraft are being built in India for the Indian air force, with talks reported to be taking place about Hawk production there for the global market.

There is no indication that the company has any interest in its UK manufacturing base except as a bargaining (blackmailing) chip, primarily to gain new contracts from the Ministry of Defence.

Advert 1: ‘Our firsts in engineering help the UK stay a world leader in innovation… In the last two years we’re proud to have launched the Type 45 destroyer and Astute submarine’

BAE projects are routinely late and over budget with the taxpayer left to pick up the bill. Only two weeks before the launch of the BAE ad campaign, a report from the House of Commons Defence Committee revealed that the budget for BAE’s Astute Submarines had increased by 47 per cent and the budget for BAE’s Type 45 Destroyers by 18 per cent, costing the taxpayer £2.2 billion more than expected. The in-service date for the Type 45 is presently three years later than planned.

But a wider question leaps out: what sort of innovation do we want? Nuclear submarines or alternative energy and transport systems? Even civil aviation has been rejected by BAE which sold its stake in Airbus, leaving the 13,000 UK employees subject to the politics surrounding French/German aerospace giant EADS.

Advert 2: ‘We train more skilled engineers in the UK than any other company… We’ve always hired and trained the very best of UK talent’

There is a skills shortage in many areas of UK science and technology. But extensive government support for arms production, not least by means of Research & Development funding, means that arms companies have not been the ones to suffer. In 2005, around £2,600m of government R&D money went to the military sector while a paltry £37m went to renewable energy.

If the government were to reduce its arms expenditure and put the money into technologies required for our wider, environmental security, there would be equivalent levels of skilled employment. A recent government report estimated that the number of jobs in the renewable energy sector could, given supportive enough policies, expand from 8,000 in 2004 to as many as 35,000 by 2020. In contrast to arms companies, this work would be a contribution to global welfare and security.

Advert 3: ‘Last year we spent over £3.2 billion with our UK suppliers… it’s all of us that benefit’

Every company has a network of suppliers. The economic activity that would result from workers moving into other sectors would result in alternative supplier networks.

And the beneficiaries of BAE’s activities? There is no doubt that the company’s decisions are taken not with the UK public or even its own employees in mind, but in order to generate maximum wealth for its international shareholders.

"The public has no right to know"

tim — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:52:37 +0000

We're now about halfway through the Parliamentary inquiry into lobbying- the first in the UK for 17 years. When it was announced, Peter Bingle (head of lobbying firm Bell Pottinger Public Affairs) made it known what he thought of the inquiry: "There is no point rehearsing in public the view that we welcome the inquiry. We don't," he said. "The real issue is that the industry needs a public voice with the ability to make a convincing case and to disarm the doubters."

Bingle got the opportunity to make his case during the latest inquiry session. He was called to give evidence alongside lobbyist Mike Granatt of Luther Pendragon, both as representatives of lobbying firms opposed to greater transparency and the disclosure of clients. In a separate session, MPs also heard from Eben Black, a lobbyist with law firm DLA Piper and Richard Schofield of the Law Society. For lobbyists opposed to greater regulation, Bingle and Granatt made a good case for the introduction of transparency rules.

Both alleged (and were backed up later by Black) that the current system of self-regulation was not fit for purpose. The code of conduct operated by the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC)- which, in a bid to increase transparency, requires members to disclose their clients on a register - was regularly being breached, they said. Granatt suggested that lobbying firms that didn't want to reveal certain clients merely set up separate companies which weren't members of the APPC. "It’s a slippery business," noted MP Gordon Prentice.

Much of the session was devoted to the ethical conduct of lobbyists. Reputation was everything in this business said Bingle, claiming that Lord Bell (chairman of Bell Pottinger, pictured) wouldn't allow them to do anything that might damage their reputation. He went as far as saying that it was because Bell Pottinger operated to the highest standards that they were the biggest lobbying firm in the UK. Paul Flynn MP wasn't impressed: "You've worked for mass murders, racists, people who've oppressed their own people...Doesn't the public have a right to know who your clients are?" he asked. No, replied Bingle, "the public has no right to know." In contrast, Eben Black advocated the introduction of a mandatory register of lobbyists and their clients held by Parliament, it being the only way to supersede the current rules for lawyers on client disclosure. This he said was superior to today's voluntary system, which isn't monitored and includes no sanctions.

Former lobbyist and member of the select committee Charles Walker MP then attacked Black's suggestion of transparency regulations with some now well-rehearsed arguments from the industry. 1) How can you have a register of lobbyists when it's so hard to define what constitutes lobbying? Black came back with a very neat definition of 'lobbying'. 2) The financial burden of regulation would squeeze out smaller operators in the industry. Black again: "What financial resources would we need to put our names and clients on a register?" 3) More openness and transparency would lead not to greater public trust but further scandal and public cynicism. Black, a former Sun journalist, disagreed: "If there was more openness, there would be fewer stories," he said.

Black obviously made an impression on Walker unlike Mike Granatt who he suggested had become "rather toxic in the private sector" since his resignation over the news that he had lied to journalists while spokesman for client Michael Martin, Speaker of the House of Commons. At the end of the session Walker approached Black and said: "If I was the Speaker, I would have hired you. Well done."