Thirty Four Agencies Sign Up To PRCA Pledge To Pay Minimum Wage To Interns…
But of the ten biggest UK agencies – according to the PRWeek Top 150 Consultancies table – only Edelman and MHP had signed up. (PR Week)

Declaration of interest – MHP Communications is my own place of work.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has thrown his weight behind a campaign being launched this week by PRWeek and the PRCA [one of the PR industry trade bodies] to end the practice of unpaid internships.

To launch the campaign, the PRCA will today take the step of placing a list on its website of all PRCA member agencies who commit to paying at least the National Minimum Wage to interns.

The list, researched in June, includes just 21 out of 264 member agencies – a mere one in 13. Among the handful of big agencies committed to paying up are Cohn & Wolfe and MHP Communications.

Declaration of interest – MHP Communications is my own place of work.

Treating interns properly in the PR industry is particularly important because it is also one of the industries where a high proportion of jobs are filled through means which do not start with placing a public job ad. That means that knowing who to contact and who to talk to gives you a particular advantage in job hunting and so the contacts you make as an intern can multiple in their benefits quite dramatically through a career.

Treating interns well – both in paying them and making their internship a genuine opportunity rather than an excuse for cheap labour – has an important part to play in making those benefits available to people based on their ability.

On the eve of the crucial Commons vote on whether to raise tuition fees by up to £9,000 a year at top universities, official data has shown that over 20 Oxbridge colleges made no offers to black candidates for undergraduate courses last year and one Oxford college has not admitted a single black student in five years…

[Mark Pack] said: ‘These figures do highlight how important the issue is, and I think it has some relevance, but the real issues about social exclusion in the education system kick in at a much earlier age.

‘If you start from the point of view of asking “how do we address this problem?” – you can’t simple look at post-18 financial arrangements.’

You can read the full story here.

Mark Pack, head of digital at MHP Communications said: ‘In order to make full sense of these figures we need to know how they break down between people making a one-off payment for 24-hour access, people buying more than one period of 24-hour access and people who have purchased permanent access. The risk is that people look at the headline figure and assume it means more readership and more revenue than is almost certainly the case. However, these figures look more promising for the paywall’s early days than many people predicted.’

You can read the full story here.

The ‘Yes to Fairer Votes’ campaign has recruited Hill & Knowlton consultant Paul Sinclair as director of comms. A former journalist and special adviser to Gordon Brown, he will lead the campaign’s communications team and act as a spokesman.

PRWeek has also learned that key figures supporting the Yes campaign are keen to have a high-profile celebrity backer, with well-known actress Joanna Lumley the top target.

Full story here.

Pack said: ‘It seems his appointment and the work of the team have produced some good advice.

‘But his own aggressive approach to minimizing the tax he pays himself sends out a slightly discordant message.

‘People may say the way to save the Government money is to get people like Mr Green to pay more tax.’

You can read the full PR Week story here.

Conservative spin doctor Andy Coulson should get ‘top marks’ for timing announcements about child benefit cuts with the start of the Tory party conference – that was the message from former Sun political editor George Pascoe-Watson as Chancellor George Osborne announced child benefit was to be axed for higher rate taxpayers…

He said: ‘Full marks to the Andy Coulson media operation.

‘The Tory conference carries one message; the nation must pull together to get us out of the trouble Labour put us in.’ …

Mark Pack said, ”I think this has been nicely timed – one of the things about the Labour conference was that there was so little policy news or proposals that the coverage was dominated by the two Milliband brothers.

‘I think it sends out a clear signal that the Government can cut without creating administration, and without affecting those who need money the most.’

Where he’s not been so impressive is at handling the legitimate questions about whether he appointed someone properly qualified to a public sector job. In that respect, he’s in the same situation as many MPs who have appointed relatives to work for them. Some have managed to defend that well because the relative has been well suited to the role and doing well in the job. Those MPs who struggled to justify it were those where it wasn’t clear that a good person was doing a comprehensive job.

Hence my views expressed in a PR Week story today:

Mark Pack, associate director at Mandate, said: ‘Hague faced questions about his private life and his professional judgement.

‘He dealt with his private life very professionally, but people are still wondering why he appointed an adviser with apparently very limited experience in his field – the reasons behind this have not been addressed.’

You can read the full PR Week piece here.

Lib Dem-supporting Mandate Communications head of digital Mark Pack said: ‘The debate and the post-debate polls have confirmed how the first TV debate has overturned the usual two-party political and media dynamics of UK election campaigns. For Nick Clegg and his party that’s a dramatic achievement.’

You can read the full piece here.