Intelligence and Public Relations: Local Authorities
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1936.tb02418.x |
| Date | 01 January 1936 |
| Author | C. Kent Wright |
| Published date | 01 January 1936 |
Intelligence
and
Public Relations
:
Local
Authorities
By
C.
KENT
WRIGHT,
B.A.
Town
Clerk
of
Stoke
Nezerington
RIOR
to writing this paper,
I
had ,ihe advantage
of
reading
the
p
excellent paper
of
Mr.
S.
H.
Wood;
and
I
was impressed, after
reading
it,
by the fact that the problems which confront local
authorities in connection with what,
for
the sake of brevity, have
been termed Intelligence and Public Relations, are essentially the
same as those with which a government department has
to
grapple.
Inteltigence
With
a
local authority, as
with
a
government department, the
object
of
intelligence work is
‘I
to
ensure that information relating
to
its work or any
of
its
departments
is
readily available when and
where
it
is wanted.’’ Internal intelligence does not, however, present
such formidable difficulties
in
the microcosm
of
a
local authority as
it
does in the macrocosm
of
a Department
of
State.
In the
first
place, the council agenda and minutes which are circu-
larised every month make
a
very useful foundation for informing
each committee, each elected member and each principal officer
of
the activities and projects
of
individual committees. Secondly,
whereas an intelligence bureau is,
I
believe, a novelty in
a
govern-
ment department, it has long been recognised that the clerk
or
town
clerk
of
a
local authoTity
is
the
officer responsible for co-ordinating
the work
of
the various committees of
the
council, and
for
advising
the other principal officers
of
the council
of
matters which concern
their departments.
Writing
of
.the function
of
the
city
manager in America, Dr. Louis
Brownluw
says:
‘‘
Put
in
another
way,
his chief function
is
to
seme
as the responsible co-ordinatvr with power
to
see
to
it
that all
of
the
departments
of
the municipality work tugether
to
cay
out the
policies that have been determined by the council
so
far as that is
possible within the limits
of
the funds which council has appropriated
for the several services.
As
such co-ordinator it is his business,
of
49
D
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