New Communications Directorate

WQ.213/2018

WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE CHIEF MINISTER

BY DEPUTY G.P. SOUTHERN OF ST. HELIER ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 23rd OCTOBER 2018

Question

Further to his answer to Written Question 194/2018, will the Chief Minister –

1. provide his assessment of the value for money of expenditure on communications, disregarding any expenditure on technical web-support elements referred to in that previous answer;
2. advise why staff have been recruited to the Communications Directorate before the results of the "further, detailed exercise" arising from the 2017 audit of communications are known;
3. state when that "further, detailed exercise" will be completed; and
4. commit to presenting the resultant report from that exercise to members?

Answer

1. It will be possible to establish the external expenditure on communications activities historically, and the further detailed exercise that will analyse these external costs has already been commissioned. However, it will not be possible to say whether this expenditure represented good value for money, because, as the communications audit revealed, there was little objective setting, or measurement and evaluation of what outcomes were achieved as a result of these communications activities. Under the new structure being created, each new communications project or campaign will need to establish objectives at the outset and measure the campaign's effectiveness in achieving those objectives. As design and marketing activities are increasingly insourced, it will also be possible to compare the costs of providing these services internally, versus the cost of procuring them via external agencies.
2. As the communications audit concluded, the previous structure of communications was ad hoc, not fit for purpose, and therefore the States of Jersey was not communicating effectively with the public, stakeholders, the media and staff. For instance, some departments had several communications officers – or people in roles that included communications – and others had none. There was also an under-resourced central press office, no central internal communications function and no in-house marketing and design function. The duplication, inefficiencies and omissions arising from this situation were well detailed in the audit.

The decision to approve the new structure of government communications was therefore not simply based on a cost comparison with previous arrangements, but on the need to create a professional government communications service, which would properly assist the government in meeting its obligations to inform and engage with the public, stakeholders and staff through high- quality and effective communications.

3. The further detailed exercise of historical communications costs will be completed by the end of November.

4. The report of those historical costs will be made available to Members.