As an experienced public affairs team, at Cogitamus we understand the importance that close and effective working relationships with parliamentary institutions and elected members can play in delivering a successful campaign.
We guide clients through what can initially seem a baffling political environment towards generating a public affairs strategy and campaign which speaks of the issues important to them. Utilising our experience we are able to identify the key stakeholders regarding an issue, which may include a range of actors from across the political sphere. By highlighting those people who are the ‘first port of call’ regarding an issue, our public affairs approach enables us to reach those individuals who may be inclined to mobilise in support of the public affairs campaign we simultaneously construct.
Parliamentarians may have an interest as individuals or in various collective groups. For example, the ‘Select Committees’ which are a major feature of the work of the Westminster Parliament and are replicated in the devolved assemblies of the UK can collectively decide to investigate a topic, throwing light on an issue that may be of importance to one or more of our clients. Similarly, less formal ‘all-party groups’ may be interested to received presentations from businesses or organisations in order to increase their understanding of an issue or idea.
Our strategic approach ensures that we identify those elected representatives who may have a geographical interest in the business, event or issue we are undertaking a campaign on behalf of. We are thus able to develop coalitions of interest amongst policy-makers as part of any campaign, which forms a crucial component of our comprehensive public affairs approach. We also understand that parliamentary relations on a day-to-day basis can prove a burdensome requirement for clients who have many other activities to run, so we are also capable of operating as the interface for such relations on a daily basis.
Case Study:
One example of a parliamentary relations strategy is the work our consultants undertook on behalf of a client involved in the transport industry. The client was a large, national company with separate premises located all over the UK, and they required parliamentary support for a potential government policy decision which stood to deliver benefits for the company in all its locations. The various premises had never before undertaken a parliamentary briefing as a group, so we gave them a collective voice, and provided them with a co-ordinated, sharp public affairs campaign, heavily featuring a parliamentary relations approach – a strategy which proved successful.