The Committee for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment welcomes the opportunity to consider the draft Communications & Marketing Strategy produced by the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment.

The Committee's views are given below:

Whilst the Committee fully recognises that the draft Communications & Marketing Strategy is produced at a strategic level, members are concerned at the lack of reference to total costs, staff and other resource requirements and to the current communications and marketing arrangements, as a benchmark to aid comparison.

The Committee also wishes to register their concern at the lack of reference to expected outcomes. Furthermore, there is no reference to the timeframes for the implementation of either the entire strategy or of individual items within it.

It would have been very helpful for the proposals to contain a formal evaluation of the current situation, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses. This would have assisted the Committee and other consultees to fully assess whether the draft Strategy demonstrates an improvement, as well as the expected future benefits which will flow from it.

The Committee was somewhat mystified that the draft Strategy did not make any reference to the proposal to shorten the name of the Department, which was presumably suggested partly for communication and marketing reasons.

These are split into internal and external with the latter further split into primary and secondary. The primary and secondary audiences are listed but no reference is made to the Committee for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment.

Secondly, as the lists are not in alphabetical order, it can only be assumed they are in priority order. This would mean that people with disabilities (including learning disabilities) are to be given the lowest priority. This is further accentuated as the Strategy states that 'the Department will be identifying and prioritising the relevant target audiences.'

Thirdly, it would be useful to quantify the different audiences and the subsets therein.

Again references are only at a very high level as set out below

'best value'

'value for money'

'maximum value for money'

'best quality and value'

There is no mention of the costs of the current communications and marketing arrangements, nor the total resources allocated to it. Thus with no hard facts it is extremely difficult to make a sound judgement on whether the draft Communications & Marketing Strategy will deliver value for money.

Insufficient attention is given to monitoring, evaluating and reviewing the success of the draft Strategy. The only reference in the document states, 'The process of evaluation of all communications activity ensures best quality and value.' Members consider that this area needs to be further developed.

In conclusion, the Committee for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment welcomes this draft Strategy, subject to the issues raised above. In general, it needs to contain greater detail to allow the Committee to make a more detailed assessment, and to scrutinise its implementation in the future.

Dr Esmond Birnie
Chairman

3 May, 2001