Further proof – as if it’s really needed – that this country’s run by a class of self-perpetuating loonies was provided by the Sunday Telegraph today.
The paper reports that the MoD has only just discovered that it has 1,000 press officers working for them and “no clear idea” who they are, what they’re doing, how much they’re costing or whether they’re achieving anything. Neither is anyone too sure who’s in charge of them as just 107 of them work for the MoD’s Director General of Media Communications, Simon MacDowall.
So completely out of control is the situation MacDowall had to commission a report – at great expense – to find out what the hell was going on in his own department. The report says: “We have no clear idea of the number of people involved in defence communications work or their costs. Over 1,000 people in MoD have a media/communications job code. This excludes many military personnel involved in communications work.”
The Office of National Statistics estimates the cost of this army of unmanaged public relations idiots at around at least £39m a year. Meanwhile the real army goes without essential equipment and supplies while operating in brutal war zones. Well done chaps!
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Communications strategy lacking at MoD « Heather Yaxley - Greenbanana views of public relations and more // July 27, 2007 at 11:55 am
[...] Comment about the number of Press Officers (over 1000), their cost (guessed at £39m) and what they might be doing is interesting – but there is more to the full MoD document [PDF] than the headline outrage (which is understandable given concerns about the war in Iraq and lack of funding for essential troop equipment especially in Afghanistan). [...]