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Government Special Advisers As Media Players: to What Extent Do

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Government Special Advisers As Media Players: to What Extent Do Work in progress. Not to be circulated without author’s permission. Government special advisers as media players: to what extent do they contribute to the ideal of good government and the informed citizen? Ruth Garland, PhD Researcher, London School of Economics Abstract The number of special advisers doubled within two years of the 1997 election, and has continued to rise, but despite their obvious utility, they are probably the least understood and most demonised of political actors and have been subjected to repeated criticism in numerous government and parliamentary reviews ((Fourth Report: Special advisers - boon or bane?, 2000; Hillman, 2014; Public Administration Select Committee, 2012; Hillman, 2014; Wright, 2002; Yong & Hazell, 2014). In this paper I use data from 26 in-depth interviews with former government press officers, journalists and special advisers, together with contemporary and archival documentary analysis, to examine how the rise of the special adviser, especially in media-related roles, has impacted on the public purposes of government communications. The Whitehall model traditionally enshrines the ideal of a ‘neutral serving elite’ (Tashir, 2015: 280) as guardians of good government and yet, as Du Gay has stated, one interpretation of “enhanced democratic rule” holds that “bureaucracies should be more responsive to the wishes of their political masters and to the people they serve” (Du Gay, 2005:51). The rise of the special adviser has been described as one obvious manifestation of responsiveness (Greer, 2008) p132), but to whom and in whose interests? Introduction “Those special advisers whose role focuses on communications, facilitating contacts with the media and the wider political sphere, are of less obvious benefit to anyone other than the ministers who appoint them and the political parties they represent.” (Committee on Standards in Public Life, 2012). At first, the idea that the politically-appointed temporary civil servants known as special advisers could contribute to the public good seems counterintuitive. They have been fixtures in Whitehall since the 1990s, yet they are frequently depicted as, at best, a necessary evil: accused of introducing party politics into the civil service by the back door, of representing the return of patronage into the civil service, and engaging in behind-the-scenes selective briefing of journalists (aka leaking). They are said to spend much of their time “burnishing the credentials” 1 Work in progress. Not to be circulated without author’s permission. of their ministers – all at the expense of the taxpayer (C. D. Foster, 2005; Future of the Civil Service: Evidence from Lord O'Donnell, 2013; Jones, 2006b; Palmer, 2015). What public good could they possibly be performing? Many arguments are used to demonise this new breed of civil servant which, by 2014-151, numbered 114 (32 at Number 10, six at the Treasury, and 54 in the departments) and cost £9.2m, but how fair are these arguments? At least some criticisms of special advisers can be seen as self-serving in at least three ways: on the part of journalists, and some members of the public, it is part of a wider anti- public service and anti-political rhetoric that has become entrenched, especially in the national press by oppositions, it is used as a stick with which to beat the government – basically all government parties agree with the increasing use of special advisers, whatever they say in opposition by civil servants, more covertly, it is used as a safer way to signal concern at the abuse of their position by ministers, without actually criticising them directly. I would argue that some of the arguments used against special advisers, actually serve to protect them, and more importantly, the ministers they serve, from a deeper and more legitimate concern with their long-term impact on democracy and the public interest, most particularly through their involvement in strategic news management. Academic evidence, or what little there is, suggests that, after an initial period of naiveté and crass behaviour on the part of some of the new breed of special advisers and ministers who came into government in 1997, this steadily growing and increasingly coordinated group of political professionals is widely perceived by both politicians and civil servants as being vital to political leadership and hence responsiveness within the civil service (Fourth Report: Special advisers - boon or bane?, 2000; Public Administration Select Committee, 2012; Yong & Hazell, 2014). The extremely rare examples of resignation following highly publicised transgression, from Jo Moore and Damian McBride during the New Labour period, to Adam Smith and Fiona Cunningham, Conservative special advisers working for the Coalition government, demonstrate how successful their integration into government has been in practice. Or do they? The Whitehall model traditionally enshrines the ideal of a ‘neutral serving elite’ (Tashir, 2015, p. 280), as the guardian of good government, but, as Du Gay has stated, one interpretation of “enhanced democratic rule” holds that “bureaucracies should be more responsive to the wishes 1 See the latest list of special advisers in post at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486829/List_of_Special_Adviser s_in_post_at_17_December_2015.pdf 2 Work in progress. Not to be circulated without author’s permission. of their political masters and to the people they serve” (Du Gay, 2005, p. 51). The rise of the special adviser in the UK has been described as one obvious manifestation of responsiveness (Greer, 2008, p. 132), and even as the beginnings of a political civil service (Hood, 2015), but responsive to whom and in whose interests? I will argue that responsiveness to ministers is not the same as responsiveness to the people, and that, in fact, the two may even be contradictory, especially in the Whitehall context. With reference to news management, which is the focus of this paper, a greater responsiveness to ministers’ media agendas may actually conflict with rather than support, responsiveness to the public. In this paper I use data from 25 in-depth interviews with former government press officers, journalists and special advisers, together with contemporary and archival documentary analysis, to examine how the rise of the special adviser, especially in media-related roles, has impacted on the public purposes and credibility of government communications as a whole. The interviews were carried out as part of my PhD research into the resilience of the government communications service after the radical changes in government communications after 1997, and the findings I am discussing here were a surprising by-product of this research. In examining changes since 1997 in the media-related practices of government special advisers, this paper will ask to what extent this development contributes towards these three main principles of democratic communication, as outlined by Blumler and Coleman (Blumler & Coleman, 2015), namely, that: everyone is equally entitled to be well informed and taken into account when decisions are made holders of significant power must account for the way they exercise it and ensure that the public interest is being served effective channels of exchange and dialogue between citizens and decision makers should be maintained. Special advisers as a manifestation of responsiveness A single media scandal may put an end to a lifelong career in just a few days. (Politicians) must create a deep backstage…in which they can trust their closest allies and friends in private (Hjarvard, 2013) Politicians’ sensitivity to, and fear of, career-threatening media scrutiny was laid bare in their evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into the ethics and practices of the press (Leveson, 2012). In this context, their perceived need to defend themselves against disgrace and failure explains at 3 Work in progress. Not to be circulated without author’s permission. least part, the general tendency since the 1980s for state bureaucracies in liberal democracies to become more responsive to the will of ministers over time (Eichbaum & Shaw, 2010; Meer, 2011; Page, 2007, 2012). In the UK this drive has been most manifest in the inexorable rise of special advisers in the civil service – temporary civil servants appointed by and solely responsible to ministers - who can manage both politics and the media (Greer, 2008). The number of special advisers has quadrupled since 1997, and, far from being the amanuensis of ministers, or the demonized ‘spin doctors’ of popular legend, they have become significant media and political operators in their own right, who together form a ‘political civil service’ (Hood, 2015). This has led some to claim that the UK now has a “dual government communication system” (Sanders, Crespo, & Holtz-Bacha, 2011). Figure 2.3 (p29) Numbers of Special advisers (political civil servants) 1980-20132 In opposition, the Conservatives were highly critical of New Labour’s special advisers, especially their role in briefing the media (Davis, 2003; Lansley, 2000; Maude, 2010) and pledged in their 2010 Manifesto to cap their numbers in government (2010). The 2012 Ministerial Code was amended to impose a general limit of two special advisers per cabinet minister but numbers rose by 17% from 66 in June 2010 to 74 in March 2011, the same number as in 2009 (McClory, 2011). Official figures released in July 2012 showed that numbers had risen further to 79 (2012). The Government’s own annual count of special advisers released in November 2014 found 103 in 2 Numbers of Special Advisers (Political Civil Servants) 1980–2013 Sources: House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, Civil servants and ministers: duties and responsibilities (HC 92-II, 1985–86), Annex 2, pp. xlii–liii; Hansard Written Answer (10 June 1993) vol. 226 c314W; House of Commons Library, Special Advisers (SN/PC/03813, 2013). Table taken from (Hood, 2015). 4 Work in progress. Not to be circulated without author’s permission. post, a rise of 37 ( 56%) since the 2010 election (2013, 2014).
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