PR Voice

Solid fare with Lionel Zetter

Dinner at Joe Allen’s last night with the lovely Madeleine Hallward – now with LLM but formerly a client at Diageo. We discussed the differences between working in-house and moving over to the consultancy side. Also compared notes on the Bromley by-election, where we found ourselves on opposite sides.

Madeleine is perfect in every respect, but God evened things up by making her a Lib Dem.

OK, so most of you were probably thinking by now that my life is and endless stream of lunches, dinners and receptions.

There is, however, a more serious side to some of the things which I (and the CIPR) get up to.

The CIPR is in guide-producing mode. First one on TUPE, now one on procurement.

Procurement processes are a little like haircuts (bear with me here..): they're boring and you never quite know what the end result will be, but if you neglect them, you end up looking like a muppet.

In the public good

Procurement of PR services by the public sector must be one of the most talked-about subjects when groups of practitioners - especially consultants - get together.

Whatever your politics, there is no doubt that New Labour was one of the best things ever to happen to this profession. "Engage your stakeholders and communicate with your publics" was the message from Mr Blair.

"We can help you with that" was our response to those organisations in receipt of Government funding and who struggled to know how best to meet the latest Whitehall edict.

Since then, working in or for the public sector has been the salvation of many CIPR members - particular those like me who saw their traditional manufacturing client base rapidly disappearing because of other Government policies. Or lack of them!

Public sector PR has enjoyed a new lease of life and in certain areas such as local government it's where some of the best work is being done these days. And I speak as someone who has spent much of the the last decade judging industry award entries.