The plan to release details of ad campaigns vetoed by the Cabinet Office could be seen as yet another indignity for government marketers already reeling from the coalition's cuts - or, as a necessary step in the drive toward greater transparency in public spending.
Last week, Marketing revealed that the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) plans to publish a line-by-line account of all the marketing campaigns it has approved and those it has turned down for funding since June, when the new protocols came into force.
Details to be published include the amount of funding requested, the Whitehall department responsible for the claim and a brief description of the proposed work. The first such document is due in the coming months and the Cabinet Office plans to publish the information on a quarterly basis.
Transparency has become a key message from the government. In June, soon after coming to power, the coalition opened up the government accounting books for the first time, publishing the entire spending database of 24m individual entries. However, it was virtually impenetrable, except to computer experts.
Political expediency
Simpler and much more politically effective was the decision by communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles to release details of all spending over £500 made by his department for the past financial year.
The government had pledged to detail spending of more than £25,000, but lowering the threshold allowed Pickles to reveal that civil servants had received massages and a trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach, which inevitably provoked howls of indignation from the media.
So, it is entirely in keeping with the current thinking that the ERG would want to share its spending decisions on marketing; but making public the details of campaigns it has blocked - money that has not actually been spent - goes one step further.
One senior government marketing source claims the plans are politically motivated. 'They are interested in showing up the profligacy of the last administration, but also want to show the steps they are taking on making savings - this is one way to do it,' he comments.
However, he remains upbeat about the development, denying that it inhibits or punishes his colleagues. 'These are new ways of working,' he adds. 'People will have to get used to it.'
Alan Gilmour, the former marketing director of the Identity and Passport Service, is still in contact with former colleagues across various Whitehall departments. Of the latest transparency plans, he says: 'This is not going to be the biggest issue for them - they are worried about their jobs.' However, he raises the question of whether the reason for blocking a campaign will also be aired.
Feedback opportunity
The criteria used by the ERG states that to win funding, ad campaigns must demonstrate a clear duty to inform, provide information critical to running the country, or show unequivocal evidence of their ability to deliver measurable benefits to immediate public health and safety.
However, according to Gilmour, the ERG gives departments no indication as to which criteria they have failed to satisfy. 'At the moment, marketers are not told why they have been refused money. They are just told that they can't run the campaign,' he says.
Hamish Pringle, director-general of the IPA, an outspoken critic of the government's 'slash and burn' policy on marketing, welcomes the latest policy announcement, 'given the long period of speculation and uncertainty that the COI, agencies, and their clients in government have had to go through'.
He adds: 'We also hope that the government will be taking up the IPA's suggestion to use the budget cuts as an opportunity to carry out some rigorous evaluations of "test and control" regions for certain key campaigns.'
Taking this step, says Pringle, would establish the effect of the reduction in adspend and its financial impact on public spending, which he calls 'the social return on marketing investment'.
If Pringle gets his way, there will be a clamour from the marketing industry for the government to extend its wide-ranging transparency drive to publishing these results, too.