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You are here:
Members Minutes 5 December 2011
MINUTES of a MEMBERS’ MEETING
held on 5 December 2011 at
at Hill & Knowlton, 20 Soho Square, London W1A 1PR
Present:
APCO, Michael Burrell
APCO, Gerald Power
Edelman, Chris Rumfitt
Fleishman-Hillard, Laura Perry
Helen Johnson Consulting, Helen Johnson (Chair)
Lexington, Alex Mawer
MHP Communications, Gavin Devine (Deputy Chair)
PPS, Julian Seymour
APPC, Mary Shearer (Secretary)
Apologies:
Cicero
Connect
Cogitamus
College Public Policy
EUK
Fishburn Hedges
Gardant
Grayling
Green Issues
Communiqué
Hanover
Positif Politics
Whitehouse Consultancy
Opening Remarks
The Chair thanked Hill & Knowlton for hosting this meeting.
1. Minutes of the Previous Meeting
Members approved the minutes of the meeting held on 12 September 2011. There were no matters arising and not elsewhere on the agenda.
2. Registration Issues – APPC, UKPAC, Statutory
The Chair reminded members of previous discussions concerning the broad APPC definition of registrable activity, which had been open to interpretation by members and had resulted in some inconsistencies of reporting. The position at the members’ meeting in July had been to base registration on “contact” with institutions of government.
Following further consultation with members, however, it had become clear that there were a number of concerns, and, given the likely timing of a consultation on a statutory register, it had been decided not to propose any changes to the APPC Register at this time. However, the Management Committee would try to provide further clarification in the website FAQs.
Action: Management Committee
The Chair noted that the APPC scope was likely to be broader than that proposed for a statutory register, which was perceived as a positive benefit by some members, who had seen the “contact” definition as a narrowing or dilution. Even without any change to the scope of APPC’s Register, APPC would need to have an agreed definition of “lobbying” in order to respond to the government consultation, ideally agreed with PRCA and CIPR. A joint working group had been set up for that purpose, on which Gill Morris and Warwick Smith had agreed to represent APPC.
The Chair reported that, in advance of the debate in Westminster Hall on 2 November, she had sent APPC’s position paper to Mark Harper MP and all other MPs on APPC’s stakeholder map. She had also had a meeting with Jon Trickett MP, the recently appointed shadow Cabinet Office minister, who was holding meetings with a range of people. The main points from the meeting were that the Opposition would support a statutory register in principle, but acknowledged that it would be critical to get the scope of the register right. Dr Trickett was also of the opinion that a statutory register on its own would probably not be sufficient unless underpinned by appropriate codes of conduct. Nonetheless he appeared to support the idea of universality subject to a de minimis level of activity, but had raised the possibility of drawing a distinction between “lobbying” and “advocacy”. He had also used the phrase “financial advantage” as a possible criterion for registration, instead of “in a professional capacity”. It seemed that those who would be drawn in by universality were lobbying quite hard to draw very fine distinctions to avoid being registrable, and the Chair had explained the problems of a de minimis rule. Dr Trickett had expected that the consultation document would be published around the end of November and that the Opposition would wish to accelerate the process.
It now seemed unlikely that the consultation document would be published until the end of January. The Cabinet Office had declined to meet APPC, CIPR, PRCA or UKPAC, and it was not clear what was causing the delay. The main issues were likely to be scope, definition, disclosure of meetings (through changes to the Ministerial Code) and possibly financial disclosure.
The priority for APPC was to prepare for the publication of the consultation. APPC would continue to hold meetings with a range of people, including senior Opposition backbenchers, and to brief the media.
Action: Chair, supported by Deputy Chair and Secretary
In addition, it was agreed that a survey of APPC members would be useful immediately after publication.
Action: Deputy Chair to write to members and to organise a survey
In the absence of Gill Morris and Robbie MacDuff, there was no up-to-date report about the UKPAC register, and APPC had not received any communication direct from UKPAC. However, UKPAC had now engaged a new IT contractor, Pixl8, who were already managing the online APPC Register. It was hoped that the UKPAC register could be launched before publication of the government consultation, but the extensive cross-referencing had caused complications.
It had been hoped that the government consultation would have been published before this meeting but, that not being the case, there was nothing further to discuss.
3. Membership
The Chair said that Chris Rumfitt had accepted an invitation to fill a vacancy on the Management Committee.
There had been many membership enquiries, particularly following the Liam Fox story, but no firm applications received.
4. Any Other Business
4.1 Young Consultants’ Committee
The YCC continued to be very active, planning a number of events for 2012. The YCC had also carried out a further survey on training, which would be circulated to all members.
Action: YCC Chair
4.2 Meeting Dates 2012
All Members 5 March, 14 May (AGM), 10 September, 3 December
Training 20 February, 30 April, 17 July, 22 October (all at Hill & Knowlton)
4.3 APPC Code Training
The Chair noted that the number of training sessions was being increased to four in 2012. The April date had been earmarked for more experienced consultants, particularly including APPC compliance officers and former MPs. Whilst attending a training session was not compulsory, it was strongly encouraged, and the Management Committee was considering an amendment to the annual Code compliance checklist to reinforce attendance.
Date of Next Meeting
Monday 5 March 2012 at 5.30pm venue tbc
NB This date could be brought forward depending on the timing of the consultation on a statutory register