APCO                                                 Martin Sawer

B2L Public Affairs                                 Darren Caplan

Cavendish                                            Alex Challoner

Champollion                                         Laura Brodie

Cicero                                                  Iain Anderson

College Public Policy                            Robbie MacDuff (in the Chair)

College Public Policy                            Sarah Phillips

College Public Policy                            Warwick Smith

College Public Policy                            Sophia Wilson

Connect Public Affairs                           Gill Morris

Edelman                                              Michael Burrell

Fleishmann-Hillard                                Scott Dodsworth

Foresight Consulting                             Mark Adams

Gardant                                               Joel Feyerherm

Gardant                                               Rory O’Neill

Hanover Communications                      Neil Lindsay

Mandate                                              Laura Jackson

Weber Shandwick                                Dan Sacker

APPC                                                 Mary Shearer (Secretary)

 

Bellenden

Green Issues

Quintus

Whitehouse Consultancy

The Chair thanked APCO for hosting this meeting.

 

Warwick Smith introduced Francis Maude MP, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, explaining APPC’s self-regulatory role. Following Mr Maude’s presentation, members discussed with him issues concerning “government lobbying government”, PASC, the PAC Working Party and running institutions of Government. The Chair re-stated the independence of APPC’s self-regulatory regime and of the planned PAC.

 

Members approved the minutes of the meeting held on 27 July 2009. Matters arising and not otherwise on the agenda were as follows:

 

            The Chair reported that a further expert adviser had been appointed. There were now two independent adjudicators, two expert advisers and potential members of the Professional Practice Panel.

            As agreed at the last meeting, this question had been given further consideration by the Management Committee and would be discussed again at the next meeting in August.

 

            The Chair was planning to convene a meeting of young consultants nominated by members of the Management Committee post conferences.

            Andrew McDonald had now been appointed as interim chief executive and APPC would try to arrange a meeting with him.

 

 

            The Chair said that Gill Morris had agreed to take forward a new membership drive, with a target of, say, 10-15 firms.

 

            The meeting noted that the Government had still not responded to the PASC Report.

 

·        The proposed UK PAC (to differentiate it from the USA PAC) should be created as a self-regulatory body covering every organisation interacting with government.

·        UK PAC would develop its own code of conduct and disciplinary rules in due course; until then, each organisation would continue to use their own code and rules.

·        UK PAC would need independence both in its governance structure and in its disciplinary procedures.

·        UK PAC would develop a kite mark in co-operation with the UK Accreditation system based on conduct, and not on professional standards.

·        Initially, membership of UK PAC would be through affiliated membership organisations but, once it had its own code and rules, it would probably permit companies to join direct.

 

The next stage would be for the working party to stand down to allow the establishment of an implementation team with an independent chair. This would entail costs for the three organisations, eg for constitution, website and fees for the independent members (who had so far given their time free of charge).

 

Members raised questions on the membership issue, fearing that direct membership would allow firms to circumvent the more rigorous requirements of APPC’s Code. Mark Adams felt that, whilst that would be regrettable, it might be inevitable to achieve the universality required by PASC. It was suggested that PAC could have separate entry requirements for firms eligible to join APPC.

 

The Chair reported on discussions with PRCA and CIPR on code and disciplinary issues, which were nearing agreement. The proposal was that there should be two registers, one for individuals (including employees of member firms) and one for firms, both recording clients, and also recording any disciplinary action. In due course, it was envisaged that UK PAC would decide which organisation should carry out disciplinary action.

 

Michael Burrell reported that the OECD was planning to issue a report towards the end of the year, giving guidance to member countries on lobbying. As the OECD bias was towards statutory solutions, he suggested that they should be advised of what was happening in UK.

 

Mark Adams agreed that an outreach strategy was needed, pointing out, for example, that PASC had recommended a statutory register.

 

The Chair noted that APPC had not responded formally to the PAC Issues Paper and proposed that it should not now do so until the implementation team started its consultation.