The media have covered extensively the extent to which civil servants accept hositality from outside bodies. When BBC News 24 covered the story, they showed constantly pictures of the Palace of Westminster. This annoyed me intensely as it had nothing to do with the story. Civil servants work in Government Departments. It was not a story relevant to Parliament. However, the basic issue is one that applies to all who work within the political process: to what extent is it appropriate to accept hospitality from those who have an interest in the outcome of policy deliberations?
One could make a purist argument that one should accept no hospitality at all and thus remain able to make a decision untainted by any positive feelings for those who have provided such hospitality. There is, to my mind, an important distinction between what amounts to briefings, where some hospitality (tea, food) may be incidental, and pure hospitality, where one is treated to free access to, say, exhibitions, sports events and the like. However, the dividing line is not clear cut. Should not a sports minister – or any parliamentarian who specialises in sport – make use of any invitation to attend a sporting event? Should not the essential consideration be whether the politician is being informed as opposed to being entertained?
There is considerable value in briefings. Hearing from a range of bodies is helpful. I appreciate there is the danger of some groups not being heard: the challenge here is to ensure that access is as wide as possible. Accessibility and transparecy are important. We need to ensure that policy makers are well informed, but we also need to ensure that the political process maintains popular legitimacy. We should get as much relevant information as we can in order to reach informed conclusions, but not in a way that suggests the possibility of bias through being too close to interested parties.
I think your initial comment is probably what most ordinary people would see as the distinction: free tea/food -v- free tickets
Personally, I’d take a hard line on your latter group. I don’t see why MPs or ministers should be given free tickets – how does watching a football game in any way aid the political judgements a sports minister makes. Meetings, presentations and submissions I can all understand/accept but not tickets. Perhaps freebies/tickets should be treated as taxable benefits. That might have a remarkable impact on how many were accepted.
To what extent do civil servants help formulate policy?
Presumambly they are responsible for collecting raw data on behalf of the gvt. I don’t know who cleans this data but I know how such action can skew stats.
If a Minister of State is incapable of controlling the dept, one could conclude that senior civil servants do what they want. I believe there is sufficient evidence for this conclusion, over the years.
There has to be reliance by Ministers on the civil service (CS), especially when shuffles of responsibility occur. Thus, I would suggest there is sufficient evidence for the public to conclude they are an integral part of parliament, as presented.
Isn’t this why this blog is so brilliant? To have your say, for us to tell you as we see it, to put right the wrongs from both sides?
To the meat: the Green Room of the BBC is up for public scrutiny apparently, so let’s either put that that in the bucket or go the whole hog and be purist.
It would be interesting to compare how many ‘Entertainment’ invites the Ministers at Culture, Media & Sport attend to that of ‘Entertaining the troops in Afghanistan’ within the Foreign Office. Not the best example for sure, but I hope you get the gist.
It has now been three months since I’ve asked DEFRA to explain their way of inviting, and then selecting, interested parties for consultation processes. How long should I have to wait for simple questions like these?
This is way too long already. I’ll add more later.
Dear Lady T,
You’ll probably need to wait until DEFRA have done a consultation on your request!
Howridiculous.
I think there is some breathtaking naivety among Parliamentarians in this regard. Corporations exist for one reason, and one reason alone. To make money. And to use that money to make more money.
They don’t have human emotions like caring, sharing, entertaining or being hospitable. They only spend money to make money. Unless they are a poor example of a capitalist corporation. Even their so-called ‘charitable giving’ is to enhance their image, and thus the value of their ‘brand’ in the eyes of the community. And thus enable them to make more money, and thus please their shareholders.
Their sponsorship of sports, culture and the arts is NEVER EVER EVER done with anything other than an eye on the balance sheet, or they would not be doing it. Sometimes it is difficult to form a very clear linkage between this spending and increased profits – but if such spending resulted in a DECREASE in profits it would absolutely, totally, certainly be stopped as not being in the interests of the owners of the business.
Customers are not entertained to the rugby because the company thinks they will spend less, or defect to a competitor. Even the money spent on tea and coffee will be part of a business case calculation, even if it cannot be accurately quantified, that it will improve the perception of the brand somewhere along the line.
Companies spend large amounts of money with companies like Millward Brown measuring the public and consumer perception of the organisation in terms of ‘consideration for next purchase’.
Anyone who doesn’t realise that this happens, at a very detailed level, in all major corporations but especially pharmaceutical companies is deluding themselves royally. You would simply not believe how much organisational effort, IT processing power and an army of ‘rocket scientist’ statisticians are expended on the linkages between money spent on advertising, sponsorship, Public Relations [aka propaganda], hospitality and what consumers are purchasing.
If you think that accepting hospitality doesn’t influence decisions, fine – you delude yourself as much as you like, but just as not everyone who is exposed to advertising buys, then everyone who remembers a commercial has had their perception of that company altered, albeit imperceptibly, as part of a drip-drip effect.
Of course you will say that accepting a cup of tea or coffee just will not have this affect. Fine – they are not going to invite people without offering them refreshment, and the cost is low – but even with that, if they spent, over the course of a year, thousands of pounds on that with no effect, or a negative one, they would stop doing it.
You will say ‘They are just being hospitable’. But ‘they’ are people and people are hospitable – a corporation cannot be hospitable any more than you can ask HBOS for a date, take GSK to the cinema or ask Lloyds TSB to be your friend. And all of those corporations will want a return on the money they are spending on you.
Every. Single. Penny.
Read this from Marina Hyde..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/14/marina-hyde
And have a look at this press release to see the phenomenal amounts of money involved in the ‘brand equity’ of companies, to give you an idea of just how much sway they can have over mere legislators.
http://www.brandz.com/upload/BrandZ-2008-PressRelease.pdf
Of course, the ‘payback’ they get on US politicians is probably a lot quicker – but they have to look after all their markets..
And much as I loathe the Daily Mail, Libby Purves is always worth listening to…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1145544/LIBBY-PURVES-When-did-hire-plumber-kept-buying-drinks-pub-Tap-dripping-it.html
You mention “transparency”. Surely that is the key. Open, honest and readily available information. We can then see who is in the pocket of whom, and who isn’t. We’re not quite as stupid as some politicians seem to think we are. We can make a judgement.
My MP puts all his expenses online. I might not agree with them all, but I can see how he is using my taxes. Acceptance of hospitality would be a useful addition, IMO.
@Alfred: If you go to the parliament website and search for “Register of Members’ Interests” you should get a list of hospitality >£590.
Alternatively if you go to the excellent http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/ you can compare members interests/additions or removals of interests over time.
Hope that helps.
I must say I’m all for registering much lower and more detailed financial interests both for Lords and Commons though I’d think perhaps they could remove some of the requirements which seem excessive. I’m doubtful of the conflict of interest in one noble lord’s case by his being a trustee of the History of Parliament Trust which produces detailed studies of elections and is funded (mostly?) by both houses of parliament!
Publishing MPs interests has value because ultimately you could in theory (if so rarely in practice) vote them out. Peers and civil servants are almost equally hard to remove once appointed!
Alfred: I agree completely about the importance of transparency. Croft: I agree also about the nature of the requirements about registering. My approach has always been that if in doubt it is best to register even if, as in my case, most of the interests are not remunerated. There is, I concede,an argument about too much transparency, by which I mean if you put an excessive amount of material in the public domain it may detract from what is actually significant, but at least then there can be no complaint that something is being hidden.
Bedd Gelert: I take your points. I tend toward the puritan end of the scale. Why should I have free tickets when ordinary punters have to pay? I don’t mind being offered a cup of tea, but I don’t think that would sway me on any issue. Indeed, I suspect I am one of those who, whatever the hospitality proferred, will decide the issue on its merits. I am in any event very discriminating when it comes to accepting invitations. I am only usually interested in meetings in my area of interest where I think I will learn something. In any event, in my area of interest (constitutional and parliamentary affairs), there are not that many organisations sloshing around seeking to offer lavish hospitality in order to sway my opinion.
Ladytizzy: On your point about the delay by DEFRA in responding to your query about consultation procedure, feel free to send further details (via this thread if you wish) and I will pursue it.
Thank you, Lord Norton. I’ll give a precis here and can send the paperwork on, if you wish.
I would like to state that questions I have put to DEFRA (and other gvt depts) over time generally have been answered promptly and in a friendly, informative manner.
This subject was on what I had been led to believe was secondary legislation on dogs and cats for the Animal Welfare Act (2006). The DEFRA site had maintained that the timetable had slipped for these animals to, perhaps, 2009 or 2010.
After checking back, the letter was sent 16 December, so not a three month delay, merely two. I apologise for the error though in mitigation I did start writing in November, since DEFRA had sprung the announcement for consultations on 7 November, with an end date of 31 December 2008.
In their words: This is a shorter than usual deadline for government consultations because the draft cat [dog] code is based heavily on the one produced by the Assembly for Wales which was subject to wide consultation. (In force from 28 November, 2008.)
Silly me for living in England.
Encouraged by you (no blame attached!) to get involved I wrote in (my first time) and specifically asked in the covering letter by what criteria the list of consultees were a) invited and b) selected. This was followed by a request to respond separately, and thus more swiftly, to this particular point.
I would also like to know who decided that only Codes of Practice have been put up for consultation rather than secondary legislation. Given the lengthy list of consultees, and the caning the press gave to these Codes, what has gone on?
If you can bear to read through the Code on dogs, can you work out who is a legal owner at any moment in time?
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DEFRA links:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/welfare-cats-cop/index.htm (substitute ‘cats’ for ‘dogs’ for the appropriate linkked pages)
National Assembly of Wales links:
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/environmentcountryside/ahw/animalwelfare/pets/codesofpractice/?lang=en – None of the links work but that’s where they should be.