2000 to 2012 : Years of Revival. Expansion and final Abolition
By the early 2000s what had been, in the1990s, the Film and Television Division within the Visual Media and Radio Group had now become part of a reorganised COI. It was part of the Broadcast and Events Department under the Directorate of Content. This Directorate also encompassed all Publications activity hence the title.
These changes were a consequence of the very substantial restructuring and the reorganisation of the COI by CEO Carol Fisher (1999-2002) into what was called “a full-service communications agency” and retitled as “COI Communications”. The overwhelming emphasis of the COI was now aimed at being seen as a planning and consultancy service.
For a time it seems that the “Broadcast” element of the Broadcast and Events Department simply covered the production of television fillers and television commercials. Other uses of moving pictures were scattered across other parts of COI.
In 2004 David Seers joined COI as Director of Broadcast comprising the Television Department (Simon Devine was Head of Television) that produced Television and Radio Commercials. “Broadcast” also included free to air Television Fillers, and the Marketing of Television Fillers. It did not at first include programs of any length, that is programs that might have previously been known as documentary films or in the parlance of the time “long form programs”. David Seers was shortly promoted to be Director of Content a Post responsible for both Broadcast and Publications areas.
The arrival of David Seers was also to mark the start of an eventual step change in the quantity and diverse use of moving pictures that was to continue through to 2012.
In 2004 Andrew Lane Fox joined Simon Devine as Deputy Head of Television (Corporate). He was tasked with growing the relatively low rate of corporate production – only 11 projects in 2004 - by taking advantage of the opportunities arising from the opening up of a plethora of new television channels including digital and online opportunities.
Lizzie Strickland was Deputy Head of Television (Commercials) for the production of television commercials her successor was Clare Hunter then called Head of Moving Image (Commercials).
Andrew Lane Fox became Head of Moving Image and Audio Content or MIAC in 2006. Eventually in 2010/11, the final year of COI, he became Deputy Director of Content.
The output of the Television Department under Simon Devine between 2000 and 2005 had mainly been devoted to television commercials and television fillers.
The situation had been complicated in the year before Andrew Lane Fox arrived by the establishment of a separate COI digital department using websites and social media. However the other part of the story was trying to establish where in COI the production of material for the new opportunities should be located. The new digital department led to different parts of the COI commissioning projects without reference to MIAC – such as live events, public relations projects, direct and relationship marketing. It was thought that such projects, where they involved the use of moving images, should be produced through MIAC. To achieve this aspiration MIAC had to make an effort to promote itself throughout not only the COI but also government departments and the public sector agencies. This led to MIAC producing projects for public relations campaigns – either broadcast or online, and for digital agencies working for COI (in a decoupled way similar to commercials) and for a range of other opportunities including digital advertisements, production of items for use on magazine websites, production of items for use on Facebook. An opportunity used by the armed forces, for recruitment such as the RAF and the Royal Marines. Items for use on Black Asian and Minority Ethnic television channels, material for distribution to the deaf communities. Material that could posted on to on banking cashpoint screens, items posted on to screens alongside underground tube escalator screens. Items that appeared on pitch side screens at football matches. An example of this was an animated film that was recruitment piece for the RAF. Multiple part projects whereby advertisements on television, or the radio or in the newspapers would lead to longer films that could be accessed online.
As the situation developed MIAC also carried out more projects with multipart and interactive content on CD Rom and increasingly DVD, for educational projects such as improving car driving standards, but also to give people a decision tree so they could navigate their viewer journey.
Andrew Lane Fox was instrumental in the department’s development of online television and played a key role in the development of its branded content, and advertising funded programmes (see later) as well as its production of digital and social media video content. He had a special interest in social media channels and how to use moving images across them.
MIAC also took advantage of a growing market of production under the generic title of Corporate Videos that covered several formats and purposes. Some were essentially public relations programs but they also included training videos, recruitment messages, corporate communication videos, interactive programs delivered on DVD and Ministerial statements to camera in the latter case an almost weekly event..
The opportunities to reach new and diverse audiences with MIAC projects, included many that were delivered on line, or came to include projects that utilised a number of different outlets with short messages in much the same way as the traditional concept of the television filler, with its origins going back to 1946, provided short public service messages. These messages could be provided to new outlets given the ease of manipulating digital moving pictures.
The eventual size of all these projects, that is to say the output of MIAC (Moving Image and Audio Content), is not known. The production process was entirely electronic nothing was on film it was all on computer hard drives. When the COI was closed in 2012 all the projects on film were handed over to the National Film Archive for preservation but no hard drives were handed over. At the time of writing it has not been possible to discover their whereabouts.
Indicative figures of the amount of production can be derived from a spreadsheet maintained by an external supplier handling the electronic distribution of MIAC productions from around 2006 to 2012. This spreadsheet indicates some 3500 items. The spreadsheet only provides titles of projects listed either as commercials, corporate items or television fillers. There is no other information about content.
The clear majority of projects are television commercials, followed by corporate programs and then by television fillers. While the exact figures are therefore not known, it is clear that the MIAC annual output over the last 6 to 8 years before COI closed far exceeded the annual output of public service moving pictures in any previous year in the history of COI.
To produce this volume of output required a considerable expansion of the number of producers involved. Moreover it brought to fruition changes in the responsibilities of Producers that had gradually been taking place over a number of years from the mid 1980s. That was the change from the role of Film Division as a commissioning / contracting body in the production of films to taking on the role of a production unit with in house creative staff hiring in technical facilities as required. It was as though the Crown Film Unit of the 1940s and 1950s had risen anew.
By the latter half of 2000-2010 around 26 producers (staff and freelance) were engaged on MIAC work. They operated under the aegis of a “Producers Guide” (copy can be viewed under Research Materials) written by Andrew Lane Fox that detailed the MIAC production process and the nature of the delegated responsibilities, the considerable freedoms that producers exercised when deciding how productions should be managed. MIAC operated as a production house in the manner of the Crown Film Unit of 1946 albeit on a much larger scale.
The overall production expenditure of MIAC in the later years of 2008-2012 was of the order of £28 million each year..
Last Days:
The election of a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government with David Cameron as Prime Minister on 11 May 2010 was to be the nemesis of COI Communications.
Once elected Cameron's government called for £6.2 billion worth of cuts across all government departments as part of a drive reduce a budget deficit. All departments were instructed to find ways to meet this target. At around a total of £540 million the expenditure by COI was an obvious target. Matt Tee Permanent Secretary for Government Communications was tasked with reviewing COI in this context and providing a way forward. His report was published in March 2011 as a Review of government direct expenditure and the role of COI.
The priority to reduce the fiscal deficit led to an immediate tightening of control of communication expenditure. The government had established in May 2010 a freeze on marketing and advertising expenditure and introduced close central scrutiny of how communication was scoped and how the return on the investment was measured.
In this context the effect on MIAC can be seen by the following figures that show the levels of expenditure from 2005/06 to 2011. The figures are the expenditure shown in the COI accounts for the period ending 30 December 2011 for the Directorate of Content that included publications as well as MIAC. They are a good indicator of the rise and fall of expenditure from 2005/6 to the peak year of 2009/10.
MIAC Annual Expenditure
(figures in 000) Year on year
2005/6 2006/7 2008/9 2009/10 2010/11 2011
48,536 45,784 49,064 54,613 49,240 19,379 (-60%)
The freeze in 2011 on expenditure for public information services meant that only essential activity, for which there was a clear and cost-effective role for direct communication, was authorised (e.g. Fire Kills a public safety campaign, DCLG, September 2010) As a result, the annual volume of communications activity commissioned through COI in the financial year 2010-2011 fell to £125 million from around £540 million. COI reacted by reducing staff numbers by 40% from 737 to 450 and operating costs by 43% from £63 million to £36 million.
The Matthew Tee review was by no means simply about COI. It considered in some detail the way in which government information campaigns were structured and coordinated in the context of the many ways information messages might be conveyed to the public through advances in technology. He proposed the creation of a Government Communications Centre (GCC) to handle this coordination. He concluded that government should make greater use of digital channels in direct communication and that digital considerations should be built into all communication activity from the start.
The concept of a Government Communications Centre at the heart of Whitehall had a good deal of merit. The issue of coordinating government information messages across departments had been a problem down the years. However this was a separate question from that of the role of COI as a procurement organisation as originally envisaged when COI was founded in 1946.It can be argued with the benefit of hindsight that to some extent COI it self had muddied the waters by increasingly taking on the role of campaign and marketing consultants following its reorganisation as an Executive Agency and the subsequent reorganisation by CEO Carol Fisher.
It is possible, even probable, that the COI as presented to Matt Tee in 2011 appeared to be the GCC he envisaged and which should properly be at heart of government given the consultancy and marketing functions it had taken on. It is possible that he did not sufficiently distinguish those from the media procurement functions such as the actual making of moving pictures.
Effectively his proposal for the creation of the GCC envisaged moving some COI staff into the GCC and closing the COI. The proposal provides a series of tasks for GCC though it does not appear to distinguish the specific procurement roles such as producing moving pictures. The accent would appear to be centred around paid for advertising campaigns.
The government response to the review by Matt Tee was published in a written ministerial statement on 23 June 2011. It rejected the conclusions of the Report in favour of a decision to close COI with a small number of COI staff moving to the newly formed GCC. An article in the "Campaign Magazine of March 2012 described the new unit:
As expected, the Government Communications Centre, led by Jenny Grey, the executive director of government communications, will have a significantly smaller headcount than the COI’s 400.
The new unit has a total team of around 150, but this includes resources such as the Prime Minister’s press office that were not previously part of COI. The 70-strong communications team will oversee services formerly handled by the COI and will include a "policy and capability" team, a "shared services" team to improve co-operation between Whitehall departments, a media planning and buying resource and a media monitoring service.
Francis Maude Minister for the Cabinet Office announced that COI would close on 31 March 2012. The amount of actual financial savings is not clear.
Thus the role of MIAC in the use film, or perhaps more accurately, the use of moving pictures in the public service, came to an end. The final years were boom years with MIAC at the height of its game utilising a remarkable range of technologies to produce material and take advantage of the many pathways to target audiences. Moreover the MIAC production operation in 2012 with its flexible ability to produce both in house or with production companies provided opportunities which those in 1946, who formed the first COI Films Division, together with their colleagues in the Crown Film Unit would have relished. For those with long memories it was very much the operation that John Grierson, COI Controller of Films called for in 1948!