How should PR practitioners approach Wednesday’s King’s Speech?
The State Opening of Parliament will be full of pomp, ceremony and substance but public affairs professionals should think carefully about their response to clients and business leaders.
The King’s Speech. A great Colin Firth movie and a set piece moment in the political calendar for public affairs practitioners.
There is pomp and ceremony aplenty but there is also a serious point to it. It is the moment the government unveils its legislative agenda for the current sitting, with a whopping 35 bills expected to be introduced at the time of writing.
Public affairs practitioners race to produce pithy and insightful summaries for clients and in-house teams scramble to try and understand which measures they should respond to or seek to influence. But in my view, business leaders would be better served by advisors who caution against this traditional bill-by-bill reporting approach.
Policy summaries are designed to help clients understand the legislative programme and to identify opportunities to influence policy makers. There is value in producing them of course, but I think the importance of each bill is usually overstated. Many are amended beyond recognition, and some are dropped entirely. Few make it through unscathed.
Unless your organisation is directly affected by specific legislation (eg the previous government’s plan for an outright ban on smoking), it is unlikely a specific piece of legislation is a make-or-break moment for you. So, what should organisations seek to gain from the king’s speech and how should public relations practitioners approach this event?
How should PR practitioners approach the King’s Speech? Originally published in CIPR Influence.
Pay attention to the political points
Whether you are agency or client side, my advice is to pay less attention to what the specific proposals are, and more attention to what they implicitly ‘say’. What is the political point being made? What will the likely impact on culture and departmental policy be? How does it compare with the manifesto – both in content and tone?
The impact of politics on many organisations occurs via rhetoric, cultural influence and of course policy decision making (ie through ministerial decisions provided for by statutory instrument). It is seldom through clauses in legislation directly.
Whitehall, not Westminster is where your focus should be.
The king’s speech is interesting (for policy geeks, anyway!) because it sets out the political strategy, direction of travel and intent of a government. These are far more important signals for organisations impacted by, or seeking to influence, politics.
This moment of political theatre can be used as a tool to analyse and predict the culture and approach an incoming government will roll out across the public sector, and how departments and public bodies will respond in policy terms.
I have worked in health and life sciences for almost a decade. The signals about priority that are picked up and promulgated throughout the NHS take their lead from the secretary of state and the government machine more widely. The word of the day – whether efficiency, digital transformation or innovation – has a subtle but deeply diffused impact on decision making and prioritisation amongst procurement and commissioning teams.
The same is true in other industries, as major automotive manufacturers make investment decisions based on the perceived level of government support for the sector and the environment that will likely arise from their economic approach.
Policies to factor into your communications
The parliamentary reaction to the proposed bills is just as important but often overlooked. Many organisations work through all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) and individual champions who take an interest in a specific policy area. Their response to the speech, both in sentiment and policy detail, should be factored into your communications.
It is common for organisations to find themselves in industry ‘talking shops’ – where they mix with other well-informed advocates who agree on an ‘obvious’ path forward. But the changes they are seeking are met against the brick wall of political reality (read: public opinion). Drug and prison reform are the two most obvious candidates that fit this bill (pun intended).
Outside counsel – whether through a public relations agency or other source – can be immensely useful in helping you to understand how to navigate competing priorities and assess the impact and influence of those with whom you disagree or who ‘stand in the way’ of you achieving a particular policy change. These insights should inform your comms strategy and associated messaging and tactics.
Consider your stakeholders
The King’s Speech is important. Think of it like a business setting out its corporate objectives in the annual report – not directly of much meaning to the teams within a company. That is, until these grand ‘vague’ objectives are translated into departmental and unit objectives and are accompanied by culture change being led by a specific interpretation of what those goals mean.
My advice is to put yourself in the shoes of your stakeholders – how will they interpret and react to the measures being outlined? What is the logical conclusion if they are followed through? What might they indicate about what is to come? And critically – what do they signal as important? The machinery of government churns these signals into action – and there lies the impact for you and your organisation.
One thing is for sure – the speech has a direct impact on the tailors who produce robes and uniforms. The impact on everything else is somewhat more complex!
