Marketing government services : are you being served?
Overview
The added emphasis in recent years on a more competitive and efficient public sector has been accompanied by an increase in the adoption of marketing concepts. The recommendations in this Report are aimed at improving management of marketing across the public sector with a view to ensuring resources are clearly focused on achieving desired outcomes. Other recommendations are directed at establishing more cost-effective arrangements with the private sector, thereby increasing the substantial savings already achieved by the Government as a result of a decision to consolidate the placement of media advertisements through a single contractor.
Advertising and promotional material has for many years been used as a legitimate marketing tool for informing the public of government services and encouraging behaviour which is regarded as in the public interest. However, this Report raises the much debated topic of whether taxpayers' funds have also been used at times to fund party-political advertising and promotion. To resolve this matter, the Victorian Parliament needs to clearly define and articulate those characteristics which it sees as differentiating between political and non-political material. If the Parliament provided such a definition, and one could argue that it is in the public interest to do so, it would then serve as an appropriate benchmark against which the propriety or otherwise of advertising and promotional expenditure could be measured with impunity. Without such a benchmark, judgements will continue to be embroiled in political controversy.