Ofsted should be congratulated for their committment to communications, not criticised for it

Ofsted have come under criticism today for spending around £400,000 per year on salaries for PR staff. I was somewhat enraged by the BBC's report firstly for the continued negative perceptions of the PR industry, but more so for a) criticising an organisation for showing a committment to communicating well with its stakeholders and b) failing to take into account the fact that many other government departments spend considerably more money than this by outsourcing PR services to expensive city agencies. I think Ofsted should be applauded for developing a strong in-house communications team.

The criticisms hit home with what regular readers of this blog will know to be one of my pet-hates - the continued perception that 'PR' is just about press and media. The BBC online article quotes Mark Wallace:

Mark Wallace, campaign director of the alliance, said: "Who could possibly think, 'we've got nearly half a million to spend on education - let's spend it on Ofsted press officers'?

"It's obscene. Shocking. If the government's got half a million to spend on education it should go on schools or teachers' pay not PR men. OK maybe they need one or two press officers - but 12?

Firstly, as a woman working in PR it's easy to take issue with the term 'PR men', though that is by the by. What I really take issue with is the assumption that a team of 12 PR people actually means 12 press officers.

So, I delved a little deeper and checked out the job vacancies on Ofsted's website. The communications roles advertised (none paying particularly exciting salaries I might add, particularly at the most senior level - the salary is quite modest for this level role based in London) include press officers, a strategic director, a PA, events managers, intranet developers, internal communications staff and publications professionals. Hardly '12 press officers'.

For an organisation employing 2,700 people spread throughout the UK, with all the associated difficulties of having a geographically spread workforce, and for an organisation responsible for inspecting education and training services being used by one third of the England population (according to Ofsted's website), a communications team of this size is probably about right, if not a little small given the sheer numbers of stakeholders with whom they are clearly committed to communicating.

I can't help feeling that once again this is just an unfounded criticism of the PR profession and a gross underestimation of the good and essential works that communications and PR professionals actually do. We in the industry need to do more to improve public understanding of what PR actually is and does, and the media need to start understanding that their own encounters with PR through press officers sending them press releases is not the entire industry. The guy or gal that swipes your card at the cash desk when you pay for your petrol is not, after all, the only person representing the oil industry, so why do people think that press officers are the only people in the PR industry?