Building the reputation of a statistical office through effective

communication

Helena Rafalowska

Director of Communication

Office for National Statistics

Today’s session

• The context• Our approach• The issues

Reputation

• Based on trust and belief in an organisation’s good intentions and standards of behaviour

• Hard to build• Easy to lose

Our role

We help Government, business and the public to make sense of the world around them in order to make better decisions to improve life in Britain

Trust is central to the business we are in

• Collecting information and keeping it confidential • Producing an accurate picture of what is going on

in the world around us• Providing robust evidence to inform decisions• Enabling citizens to judge the performance of their

government

Maintaining trust is getting more challenging

• Statistics, especially on government performance are becoming politicised

• The media, our main channel of communication is becoming more contentious

• The world is getting more complicated and harder to measure

• Statistics are playing a more important role in national life

• In a web world there is no hiding place

Building and maintaining reputation

Integrity and political independence:

• National Statistics Code of Practice• High standards for methods and quality• Confidentiality of personal data• Pre-announcement of publication dates• Publication of pre-release access lists• Timed release of market sensitive

information

Issue management

• Senior level involvement• Awareness of the potential for controversy• Task force approach• Honesty about acknowledging mistakes• We always refute unfounded criticism

Reputational incidents in the national media

0

2

4

6

8

10

Error Unaware ofwider context

Surprise / lackof warning

Anti ONSbriefing / leak

Inappropriateremarks from

briefingstatisticians

Cause of incidents

No

. of

ma

jor

inc

ide

nts

Openness and transparency

• Pre-announcement of publication dates• Media access to statistical specialist• Clear communication• Direct, unmediated communication• Liberal interpretation of Freedom of Information

Act• Errors and corrections published on web

homepage

Web page

UK at a glance

Topic based summary

Media handling

• Straight news releases• Good relations with journalists and

commentators• Increased emphasis on more trusted broadcast

media• Media monitoring and measuring• Media and presentation training

Most frequent source of news

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Media

Per

cen

tag

e o

f re

spo

nd

ents

TV Radio Newspaper

Source:British Market Research Bureau International 2002

Most trusted source of news

0

1020

3040

50

6070

80

Media

Pe

rce

nta

ge

of

res

po

nd

en

ts

TV Radio Newspaper

Source: British Market Research Bureau International 2002

Daily newspaper circulation February 2004

0

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

The Sun

Daily

Mai

l

Daily

Mirr

or

Daily

Tel

egra

ph

Daily

Exp

ress

Daily

Sta

r

Times

Daily

Rec

ord FT

Guardia

n

Indep

enden

t

Newspaper title

Cir

cula

tio

n

Source: British Market Research Bureau International 2002

Television ratings

Source: British Market Research Bureau International 2002

02,000,0004,000,0006,000,0008,000,000

10,000,00012,000,00014,000,00016,000,00018,000,000

I'm a

cel

ebrit

y get

me

out of h

ere

Easte

nders

Child o

f our T

imes

ITV N

ews at 1

0.30p

m

Panora

ma

Horizons:

Thal

idom

inde

Newsn

ight

Open

Univ

ersity

: top ra

ted p

rogra

mm

es

Launch of Census 2001 population figures

Family Spending

Media monitoring

Total coverage

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan

Positive

Neutral

Negative

Issues

• Finding real measures of public trust• Identifying the major influences on reputation• Establishing a clear powerfully expressed brand

identity• Working with an innately conservative culture