Spin Control and Freedom of Information: Lessons for the United Kingdom from Canada
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.0033-3298.2005.00435.x |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Author | Alasdair S. Roberts |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
ARTICLES
Public Administration Vol. 83 No. 1, 200 5 (1–23)
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
SPIN CONTROL AND FREEDOM OF
INFORMATION: LESSONS FOR THE
UNITED KINGDOM FROM CANADA
ALASDAIR S. ROBERTS
The United Kingdom’s new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is intended to
empower citizens by granting a right to government documents. However, the law
will be implemented by a government that has developed highly centralized struc-
tures for controlling the communications activity of its departments. How will the
revolutionary potential of the FOIA be squared with government’s concern for
‘message discipline’? Experience in implementing Canada’s Access to Information
Act may provide an answer. The Canadian law was intended to constrain executive
authority, but officials developed internal routines and technologies to minimize its
disruptive potential. These practices restrict the right to information for certain types
of stakeholders, such as journalists or representatives of political parties. The conflict
between public expectations of transparency and elite concerns about governability
may not be adequately accounted for during implementation of the UK Freedom of
Information Act.
A CONTRADICTION IN REFORM?
The United Kingdom is entering an extraordinary period in administrative
reform. It is a system of government in which, for many years, emphasis has
been placed on the need for tight central control of media relations and other
communications with the public. However, the Blair government has also
committed itself to a new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which prom-
ises to create a broadly distributed power to gain access to government
records. If journalists, legislators, and lobbyists exploit the potential of the
new law, the capacity of government to maintain ‘message discipline’ and
Alasdair S. Roberts is an Associ ate Professor of Public Administr ation in the Maxwell School of
Syracuse University and Director of its Campbell Public Affairs Institute.
2 ALASDAIR S. ROBERTS
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
control of the policy agenda will be seriously undermined. In practice, how
will these two contrary pressures – one for centralization of control over
communications, the other for liberalization of access to documents – be
reconciled?
The long-term trend toward centralization of control over commu-
nications functions within the United Kingdom’s central government seems
undeniable. As Bob Phillis has observed (Evidence to the House of Com-
mons Public Administration Committee, 22 January 2004), authority for
communications functions has been further concentrated within the Prime
Minister’s Office under the Blair government, with the task of news man-
agement ‘tightly controlled’ by the Prime Minister’s press secretary ‘and the
machinery that he put in place’. The number of special advisors whose
principal function is to handle contacts with the media has also grown
substantially under New Labour (Committee on Standards in Public Life
2003, para 4.20). Communications specialists throughout government have
been encouraged to take a more active role in policy-making, so that ‘media
handling [is] built into the decision-making process at the earliest stage’
(Timmins 1997). Pressure on communications staff to ‘raise their game’ has
led to widespread complaints about the politicization of career media offi-
cers (Committee on Standards in Public Life 2003, para 8.3; Government
Communications Review Group 2004).
‘New Labour’, said Margaret Scammell at the end of its first term of
government, ‘has raised the business of political communications to a new
plane’ (Scammell 2001, p. 509). This may be so; nevertheless, it would be an
error to assume that the preoccupation with ‘spin control’ would abate
under any other party. The Thatcher and Major governments also attempted
to build up their capacity to coordinate communications activities. James
Barber as well as Bernard Ingham have charted the steady intensification of
such efforts throughout the post-war period (Barber 1991, p. 33; Ingham
2003).
The reasons for this continued drive toward centralization are complex.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life suggested in 2003 that govern-
ments are responding to ‘a dramatic change in media pressure’, caused by a
proliferation of media outlets, an erosion of media deference, and the advent
of a twenty-four hour news cycle. Governments, it suggested, now live in a
state of ‘permanent campaign’ (Committee on Standards in Public Life 2003,
para 4.18). The encroachment of ‘spin-culture’ can be seen outside of gov-
ernment as well, as other institutions of British life sharpen their capacity to
hone the messages which they project to the public (Manning 1998; Miller
and Dinan 2000; Pitcher 2003). Even the Phillis Committee, while repudiat-
ing ‘misleading spin’ of government policies, argued, in its January 2004
report, for further concentration of communications responsibilities at the
centre of government (Government Communications Review Group 2004).
The capacity to maintain message discipline depends as much on the
ability to determine what is not said by government officials, as it does on
To continue reading
Request your trial