The ‘Review of government direct communication and the role of COI’ has been published today by the outgoing permanent secretary for government communication Matt Tee.

Tee’s report recommends that COI be replaced with a Government Communication Centre (GCC), which would have responsibility for all government direct communication (marketing and advertising).

The review proposes that “a different approach to Government direct communications is needed,” and that a direct marketing strategy should be developed by the executive director of the GCC at the beginning of each Parliament.

This strategy should be fully aligned with government priorities – Tee states that “it is clear that some government direct communication recently has been unrelated to an overall sense of government priorities.”

The transition to a GCC would mean discarding the COI brand. Tee writes that COI is currently “at a distance from government” due to its status as an Arm’s Length Body (ALB) and its funding model. Although many of its current functions under the marketing and advertising freeze would be incorporated into a new government strategy for direct communications, Tee’s recommendation is that “retaining the brand would suggest a greater continuity with the recent past than [he] thinks is helpful.”