APPC to the rescue?

So following yet another scandal "Drapergate" in 1994, five public affairs consultancies joined together to form the Association of Professional Political Consultants. The aim of the APPC is to be a self-regulatory body, with its own code of conduct, a publicly available register of clients and complete ban on any financial relationship with politicians. Gill Morris, pictured, is the current Chairperson of the APPC and recently came to talk to our public affairs class.

We had an interesting discussion about the state of lobbying in the UK and what could be done to improve its reputation. Obviously, as Chair of the APPC, Gill would like to see all public affairs consultancies registered. There are consultancies like Bell Pottinger who simply refuse to become members and this isn't helping the industry's reputation.

It seems that one of the clauses in the APPC's code of conduct is possibly stopping some consultancies from being able to enlist. It states that there shouldn't be any MP or Peer on the books of a public affairs consultancy. This is obviously difficult for BPPA as their Chairman is Lord Bell. However the APPC are looking to amend this clause which will mean there is little to stop all consultancies registering their interests with the APPC. BPPA, however, still maintain that they wouldn't join even if this clause was amended as they don't see the point. In my opinion, this seems more like they have something to hide.

Gill Morris has managed to enlist John Grogan MP in her battle to raise the standard of the industry. He has raised an Early Day Motion to make APPC membership a prerequisite for public affairs consultancies wishing to deal with government departments and it will be interesting to see how successful this will be.