Lessons in political correctness

As I’m sure many readers will have seen in this morning’s FT, Select Committee appearances can be extremely stressful for executives and one awkward question can break reputations, both individual and corporate, in a matter of moments.

Read today’s Financial Times for a great piece by Kiran Stacey, quoting my colleague Kevin Craig - working with a company such as PLMR can maximise your piece of mind and turn a Select Committee appearance into an opportunity, not only for a positive profiling for individuals, but for effective communication of a sector’s key messages to audiences within and outside Parliament.

As Kevin is quoted in the article;

In response, an industry has grown to protect these bosses and their reputations. Executives are now turning to professional political consultants to ask them to pr for appearances that have the potential to make or break their careers. More than 60 agencies advise thousands of organisations in the UK alone, and clients can range from major banks to rugby clubs. Kevin Craig, managing director of PLMR, one of these agencies, describes it as “a very significant sector right now”.

To view online, click on the following link (behind paywall): http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ace0d6f2-3875-11e0-959c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1Dv5s8LKx

Kathrine Bancroft in PR Week's Soapbox

PLMR's Kathrine Bancroft was featured in this week's PR Week Soapbox.

It has been a difficult couple of weeks for the Big Society. Steve Hilton’s brainchild has been under attack from all sides, from Big Society ‘tsar’ Lord Wei announcing he was scaling back his unpaid commitments because they were incompatible with having a life, to Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, who is stepping down as executive director of the volunteering charity CSV, saying the cuts are destroying volunteering.

Not that this is a new phenomenon. Since its inception, the Big Society has raised more than its fair share of quizzical looks. But recent interventions have upped the number of slings and arrows that the Big Society has had to suffer and will be causing a few jitters in the corridors of power.

Where once it had to withstand a barrage of theoretical dissing, its substance is now being challenged.

And by tying it so explicitly to that most dreaded of words – cuts – the Big Society’s detractors are really hitting the Government where it hurts.

Not that this will or can alter the course: too much has been invested in it, and there’s too much riding on it as the coalition’s good news story for it to be packed off to the policy graveyard. So the coalition will follow Winston Churchill’s motto to KBO – Keep Buggering On, that is. It is the only thing the coalition can do.

Read online here http://www.prweek.com/news/1053960/Public-Affairs-Soap-Box---Kathrine-Bancroft-associate-director-PLMR/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

Serving those who serve

Since the 1689 Bill of Rights, Parliament has been required to pass an act every five years that renews the Army, Air Force and Naval Acts. Whilst in1689 they could not have foreseen the rapidly changing face of war this allows Politicians the opportunity, and indeed the duty to ensure that the legal status of the Armed Forces adequately reflects what they are required to do.

The act was completely re-written in 2006 and made some significant achievements in bringing the bill up to modern standards, however following a commitment outlined in the Coalition document (but interestingly not in any individual party’s manifesto) the Military Covenant is to be enshrined for the first time in Clause 2 of the Armed Forces Bill.

Clause 2 requires the Secretary of State to prepare an annual armed forces covenant report on the effects of membership on service people, which includes Veterans and their families.

The true need for this report has never been greater, particularly in the fields of Mental Healthcare. A recent study by the King’s Centre for Military Health Research[1] suggested that almost a quarter of Iraq Veterans admitted to suffering from mental ill-health, with nearly 5% displaying symptoms of PTSD. By projecting these statistics on to the 180,000 Service men and women who have been deployed to Iraq and to Afghanistan, we could be looking at as many as 48,000 Veterans suffering some form of mental ill health, with 9,000 potentially developing PTSD.

And that's not just 48,000 individuals suffering, that's also 48,000 families whose lives have been permanently affected by debilitating mental injuries.

The concern will be that while enshrining the covenant is a significant step to rebuilding our eroded Military Covenant, it is not known exactly what will be required to be included in the report. During the Second Reading Dr Liam Fox indicated that this was to avoid ‘long and complex’ legislation.

As the Bill moves into Committee stage tomorrow, we will have a while to wait before we see if the first armed forces covenant report will have any teeth, and while long and complex legislation affords nobody any favours, it is vital that this report reflects the true nature of the impact of war on individuals who have served their country, and ensuring proper care for individuals suffering for the sacrifices they have made.

Sara Kelly is an Account Executive at PLMR. She has previously worked in Westminster for Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP and campaigned in elections and by-elections. She runs her own blog.

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[1] *What are the consequences of deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan on the mental health of the UK armed forces? A cohort study (Matthew Hotopf and Simon Wessely) http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/10TL1552.pd