The PR humbug
Sir : In your issue of 16 October you carried a mixture of a book review and an article in the form of a most intemperate diatribe by Mr Richard West entitled 'The PR humbug'. It would seem reasonable for anyone who is going to be quite so abusive to at least check his facts before committing himself to print in a widely read and respected weekly.
The news item in question was, in fact, a review of Parliament which gave a summary of a Parliamentary Question and Answer on 6 October in the House of Lords. The Lord Privy Seal was asked how many public relations officers were currently employed by government departments compared with October 1964. He stated that there were 992 members of the information Officer Group in January 1964 compared with 1473 now. This gives an increase of approximately 30 per cent over nearly thirteen years. This is a very different picture to one year where even Mr West should have realised that such an increase was most unlikely and it is a good deal short of his own figure of 2000.
Half of these 1473 are employed in the Central Office of Information and 75 per cent of this figure are employed on promoting the United Kingdom abroad and the greatest emphasis is placed on assistance to British exports. There have been a number of testimonials to the excellence of this service.
The remaining number are employed in Whitehall Departments. They have to explain the details of new and existing legislation, which is often very complicated, to the general public, the national, regional and local press, the BBC, the IBA programme companies and even contributors to weeklies who take the trouble to check their facts. They cover such diverse activities as advertising campaigns, exhibitions, publications, photography, films and television. All press offices are manned on a twentyfour hour basis seven days a week. Those manning overseas exhibitions helping to sell British goods think nothing of putting in an eighty-hour week. In short theGovernment's Information Officers are busy people; they are in the business of communication for the purpose of preserving a healthy democracy.
Brian Stevens Assistant Secretai y, The Institution of Professional Civil Servants, Northumberland Street, London WC2
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