A good start on openness from PM Starmer

This will be another very short “would be on social media if I still did that” post. However, unlike the last one, I hope it won’t end up being 3,500 words (oops).

I just watched this video from PM Starmer.

I’m extremely pleased to see the Prime Minister taking the time to address the entire civil service so early in his role and not only doing it on video, rather than via a formal letter, but particularly that the video is available to anyone on the internet.

It is a little odd that the video is unlisted on YouTube and that a channel that has under 5k subscribers now has a video with over 22k views. I assume the video link was emailed to civil servants? Yes, 22k is a small percentage of civil service staff but I suspect the video hasn’t been up long and any associated email is buried in people’s inboxes. Plus a very significant number of people just aren’t interested in things that don’t impact them or their jobs directly — and that’s entirely up to them.

I really hope not just that this trend continues but is massively increased. Recent governments have been stuck in formal-letter mode and have massively underestimated the power of video in spreading short powerful positive messages. I hope as many Ministers as possible get into the habit of keeping civil servants and the public updated on what is happening in their departments and that they encourage their staff to start doing open and honest public show-and-tell videos of the work they are doing.

Most of all, I hope the Mission Boards do this from the outset. I think it was the Institute for Government who suggested that each Mission Board should do public video updates in the manner of the regular “minister and experts” sessions that we got during the pandemic. I’d prefer a much more informal style, not behind a podium, and with more input from staff doing active related front-line work.

In brief, short video is a super powerful medium and much better than the bland highly-managed social media output we’re used to from departmental comms teams. I hope we see a lot more of it from this government.