Public Communication Scan of the United Kingdom

Executive summary

In recent years, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers have gained new awareness of public communication’s potential in achieving better policy outcomes. With weak public confidence in government institutions and the deteriorating health of information ecosystems, governments are rethinking how communication can support democratic resilience. In many democracies, the space for open public debate that fosters this democratic resilience suffers from polarising narratives and disinformation. This can undermine policy and result in public disengagement from political and civic participation.

Public communication can address these challenges and contribute to stronger, more effective democracies. It provides citizens with reliable information that helps them make choices that improve their lives, and form opinions and preferences on matters of public interest. Public communication is also a powerful instrument for listening to citizens’ voices in the virtual public square made up of digital and traditional communication channels.

When institutions listen to their citizens, it can inform responsive policy, enable dialogue, and support participative decision making. It can thereby alleviate citizens’ frustrations that they do not have a say in what governments do and that their feedback goes unheeded. The 2021 OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions identified these as primary factors of low trust in institutions.

This Public Communication Scan of the United Kingdom analyses how UK institutions conduct purposeful communication in support of policy, dialogue and citizen participation. It also looks at how they gain trust in a challenging context of polarisation and misinformation.

The Scan focuses on the Government Communication Service (GCS) whose leadership at the centre of government helps it communicate with one voice and improve standards of practice across institutions. Following a period of internal restructuring, GCS published an ambitious three-year strategy in 2022, entitled “Performance with Purpose”, to help it overcome existing challenges and harness technological change. The Strategy places strong emphasis on the purpose of communication as being in the service of government objectives.

This report begins with an overview of the GCS and its core structures and policies (Chapter 1). It highlights the important progress the GCS has made in recognising and empowering communicators in UK institutions, which is a precondition for making effective use of the function.

This progress is partly visible in the integration of public communication with policy to improve its development and implementation (Chapter 2). Analysis focuses on the use of communication campaigns to support policy implementation. Campaigns are used to reach diverse groups in society with tailored information encouraging compliance or positive behaviour change. The chapter also finds that public insights gathered from diverse communication channels can improve the design of policy. It recommends UK communicators to work more closely with policy teams, and innovate and expand methods for organisational listening to make their institutions more responsive, reliable, and trustworthy.

Finally, building trust in institutions as information sources is a prerequisite for the effectiveness of public communication (Chapter 3). This trust is threatened when there is risk of this function being politicised. It undermines public perceptions of institutional communication as impartial and unbiased. Trust in official information is equally crucial against mis- and disinformation in the age of artificial intelligence. To this end, the chapter recommends independent oversight and better separation of political and public communication.

Key findings and recommendations

• Across the 12 government departments analysed, many communication teams showed leading innovation and excellence in the field. There is an opportunity to elevate all departments to the same high standards and to consolidate those promising practices and methods that make for more responsive, inclusive communication. GCS’ plans for greater knowledge-sharing, upskilling and innovation in its reform strategy, position it well to drive this change.

• A core area to strengthen is gathering insights about citizens’ preferences and concerns, particularly by building capacity to conduct organisational listening at scale. Combined with other means of citizen and stakeholder participation, this could enable a feedback loop between government and citizens that builds trust. GCS could be among the first entities internationally to introduce a dedicated framework and promote this practice across UK institutions.

• UK communicators reported improvements in how their work is valued and understood by leaders and policy teams in their institutions. They attribute this to measurement and evaluation, which can demonstrate the value of communication in achieving tangible policy objectives. Nonetheless, communication seldom contributes to the early stages of developing policy where it can channel citizens’ voices to inform decisions. GCS can address barriers to effective collaboration between communication and policy disciplines to unlock these benefits.

• The public communication function in the UK is not immune to the trend towards politicisation observed in several countries. A complicated past legacy and the UK’s polarising media discourse risk making communication appear biased or untrustworthy to the public. Evidence points to an enduring emphasis on the press office function to secure favourable headlines in politically influential outlets at the expense of more strategic activities. This illustrates the sometimes-tenuous separation between public and political communication that needs reinforcement to ensure integrity.

• The trustworthiness of the public communication function is essential. It is crucial in countering disinformation and underpins GCS’ social license to use technologies and tools such as ad targeting and behavioural insights responsibly and in the public interest. GCS could benefit from introducing a transparent, independent oversight mechanism to ensure propriety and trustworthiness. It should also consider co-developing with citizens a charter to meet public expectations for communication and engagement.