A small number of staff from the COI, due to be closed by April 2012, will be transferred into the Cabinet Office. An executive director and Communications Delivery Board will be appointed there to oversee the co-ordination, prioritisation and strategic planning of communications across government. The board is likely to be chaired by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and to include senior officials from across government.
On the day of the announcement, Cabinet Office chief operating officer Ian Watmore tweeted that he hoped COI staff would find jobs across government, “as they are good people”.
Departments will retain their own marketing teams, and source extra communications and marketing services through a buying operation run by Government Procurement.
The Cabinet Office will conduct a number of reviews into making the best use of communications capabilities across departments, and investigate the development of a “shared communications delivery pool” for some specialist services as well as a number of specialist marketing hubs.
The COI was established in 1946 and designed a number of iconic public information campaigns, including the Green Cross Code road safety campaign (pictured).
Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said the closure of the COI “does not mean the end of vital and cost-effective marketing campaigns – such as those campaigns that save people’s lives”. In future, he said, communications spending will be “more transparent, better coordinated and less bureaucratic.”
Hamish Pringle, director general of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, said he hoped the reforms will result in “a much closer alignment between policymakers and communications experts” and “a reduction in the duplication of messages to the same target audiences."