Response to EU lobbying paper

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Response to EU lobbying paper

Response to EU lobbying paper

Introduction to the APPC

The APPC is the representative and regulatory body for UK political consultants and public affairs professionals. It has three main roles:

To ensure transparency and openness by maintaining a register of political consultants
To enforce high standards by requiring members to adhere to a code of conduct
To promote understanding amongst politicians, the media and others about political consultants and the public affairs sector, and the contribution made by political consultants to a properly functioning democracy

Organisations using political consultants come from the voluntary, campaigning and public, as well as private, sectors. By employing consultancies which are members of the appc they can be sure that their consultants operate within a strict ethical framework.

Membership of the organization: 34 members.

Response to the Green Paper

The APPC (Association of Professional Political Consultants), the self-regulatory body for UK public affairs consultancies, welcomes this opportunity to contribute to the debate on an appropriate framework for the activities of interest representatives (lobbyists).

We are in broad agreement with the key elements of the Commission’s conceptual approach to the issue, namely that:

lobbying is a legitimate part of the democratic system
lobbyists can help bring important issues to the attention of the European institutions
undue influence should not be exerted through improper lobbying
lobbyists have an obligation to society at large to be transparent about what they do
measures in this field must be effective and proportionate

We also welcome the Commission’s understanding that lobbyists work in a variety of organisations: public affairs consultancies, like our own, but also law firms, NGOs, think-tanks, companies (“in-house representatives”) and trade associations.

Finally, to the extent that the Commission considers greater transparency in lobbying to be necessary and desirable, we support the Commission’s view that an effective system of self-regulation may provide the most appropriate way forward.

That we do so should not be surprising, given that the Association exists to provide such a system of self-regulation for public affairs consultancies in the United Kingdom and has done so effectively for many years.

We readily acknowledge that the UK is but one member state and that our remit within it is confined to public affairs consultancies. Nevertheless, we believe that our general approach may have some lessons for the current European Union debate and we submit this response in that spirit.

Briefly, we have constructed a self-regulatory system to which the vast majority of eligible consultancies (our current membership is 34 firms) voluntarily submit themselves. They do so because they share a commitment to high ethical standards and because they believe that their willingness to work in a transparent manner provides them with “a license to operate”.

Our system is built on a code of conduct (attached) and on the twin pillars of transparency and a complete ban on any payments to legislators. For our members, transparency involves a commitment to publish their client lists four times a year, together with lists of employees who are engaged in political advocacy work. Perhaps more importantly, our code requires that, “in making representations to the institutions of government, political consultants must be open in disclosing the identity of their clients and must not misrepresent their interests”. The code of conduct, which has been amended over the years in the light of experience of its operation, forms part of the employment contract of individual consultancy practitioners.

We take the view that our system has made a positive contribution to the maintenance of high standards in public life in the UK. It works because its members are committed to making it work in their own interests and those of wider society. Through training and in other ways we have sought to create “a culture of compliance” that makes operating in accordance with our principles the natural day-to-day instinct for our members. We believe that this is more effective than requiring compliance with a series of rules.

But in case something should go wrong we also have a complaints and disciplinary system that is supervised by respected and independent third parties. We had occasion in the early years of our operation to deploy this mechanism in a manner that both dealt effectively with the specific issues at stake and helped to reinforce the culture of compliance.

Against this background, while acknowledging that the Commission must take into account a broad variety of institutional and cultural differences across the 25, our view is that the Commission is right to favour a self-regulatory approach based on transparency and on a set of general principles that can be applicable to all those who lobby.

Our answers to the specific questions posed by the Green Paper are as follows:

1. Do you agree that efforts should be made to bring greater transparency to lobbying?

The right to lobby is an essential democratic freedom, but with that right comes a duty to operate in a transparent manner. Public affairs consultancies, for example, should be transparent about on whose behalf they are acting, but so should all those engaged in lobbying, including, for example, law firms and NGOs as well as in-house representatives. We would therefore support proportionate efforts to enhance transparency in relation to lobbying the institutions of the European Union.

2. Do you agree that lobbyists who wish to be automatically alerted to consultations by the EU institutions should register and provide information, including on their objectives, financial situation and on the interests they represent? Do you agree that this information should be available to the general public? Who do you think should manage the register?

We see advantage in a simple system of public registration applicable to all those who lobby the EU institutions, so long as it is entirely voluntary. We think that the suggestion of “clear incentives for lobbyists to register” (such as automatic alerts on consultations) is fundamentally misconceived. Lobbyists should need no such incentive and we would oppose any suggestion of creating a system that sought to give registered lobbyists privileges that do not apply to all citizens. In our view, the only requirement in the register should be transparency about on whose behalf the lobbying is being conducted (“the interests they represent”; in a consultancy context, the client list). Our experience teaches us that simplicity is of the essence and that requiring over-elaborate detail would be unnecessary, ineffective and disproportionate. Specifically, we would not support a requirement to publish figures, such as individual client fees: we believe that this is irrelevant to the promotion of good practice in lobbying and would be an unnecessary intrusion into the commercial relationship between supplier and customer. The question of who should manage the register should be the subject of further consultation with interested parties. It may well be that elements of this task could be sub-contracted to existing self-regulatory bodies, such as the European Public Affairs Consultancies’ Association (EPACA).

3. Do you agree to consolidating the existing codes of conduct with a set of common minimum requirements. Who do you think should write the code?

Rather than consolidating existing codes with a set of common minimum requirements, it may be more helpful to think in terms of seeking to establish agreed core principles of ethical lobbying that would be applicable to all. These should provide the foundation for, but not seek to replace, existing codes, which may well encompass particular points that are of special relevance to the specific group concerned. The Commission should take the lead in convening a representative group of key stakeholders who could be tasked with both drafting the core principles and making recommendations about mechanisms to secure compliance.

4. Do you agree that a new, inclusive external watchdog is needed to monitor compliance and that sanctions should be applied for any breach of the code?

On the institutional side of the equation (the lobbied) there may well be a case for the establishment of an over-arching committee on standards in EU life that could consider issues relating to standards in the Commission, the Parliament and the Council. However, as far as interest representatives/lobbyists are concerned, the effectiveness of the self-regulatory approach which the Commission endorses will be enhanced by the active involvement of the self-regulated. Hence any new architecture should seek to build on rather than replace existing effective mechanisms that seek to monitor compliance and encompass sanctions – such as, for example, EPACA’s Professional Practices Panel. If the Commission adopts the suggestion of convening a representative group of key stakeholders, it may well be that such a group could eventually play an umbrella role in support of the widespread adoption of the core principles of ethical lobbying.

In conclusion, we are grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to the consultation on this important subject, we commend the Commission for having stimulated a useful debate on it and we stand ready to contribute in any way that we can to future discussions.

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Response to EU lobbying paper