Opaque: an empirical evaluation of lobbying transparency in the UK

McKay, Amy Melissa; Wozniak, Antal

doi:10.1057/s41309-019-00074-9

Cited by 23 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Our findings validate previous research (e.g. McKay and Wozniak, 2020) according to which there is a mismatch between formal consultant lobbying organisation registration and the actual reality on the ground.…”

Section: Where Do They Land?supporting

confidence: 91%

Life after Whitehall: The career moves of British special advisers

Orchard

Gouglas

Pickering

2023

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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The article examines the post-government career moves of 521 former British special advisers who served from 1997 to 2017. Analysis of an original dataset mapping the first job each special adviser ‘landed-in’ after leaving government shows the vast majority land in corporate lobbying and policy advocacy roles. A minority become politicians, although many continue to work in political organisations. The least popular choice is public service. The findings challenge the ‘lure of power’ hypothesis and lend weight to increasing concerns about former political staff revolving to shadow lobbying. The findings point to potential lobbying regulation loopholes first raised by the UK Committee of Standards in Public Life. A multi-nominal logistic regression shows how party affiliation and occupational path dependency constrain career moves. Labour special advisers are less likely to become corporate lobbyists than Conservative and Liberal Democrat ones. Special advisers also tend to revolve back to similar professional roles held before an appointment.

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Section: Where Do They Land?supporting

confidence: 91%

Life after Whitehall: The career moves of British special advisers

Orchard

Gouglas

Pickering

2023

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…This challenge is not unique to Australia. Inaccessible data about lobbying and political contributions is the norm internationally [ 51 – 53 ]. Data availability has also presented challenges for public health scholars attempting to monitor the commercial determinants of health, with projects seeking to systematically assess corporate political influence needing to limit the scope of inquiry as data around lobbying was lacking [ 54 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A proposal for systematic monitoring of the commercial determinants of health: a pilot study assessing the feasibility of monitoring lobbying and political donations in Australia

Lacy-Nichols

Cullerton

2023

Global Health

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Background The commercial determinants of health include a range of practices to promote business interests, often at the expense of public health. Corporate political practices, such as lobbying and campaign donations, are used to influence policy makers and foster a political and regulatory environment conducive to business interests. Despite recognition of their public health importance, thus far there are relatively few efforts to systematically monitor commercial political practices. Methods A pilot study was conducted to explore the feasibility of systematically monitoring two political practices – lobbying and political contributions – for ‘harmful industries’ (alcohol, gambling, ultra-processed food and tobacco industries) in Australia. Potential data sources were reviewed to compare data availability and detail. Two publicly available datasets were selected for the pilot: ministerial diaries for New South Wales and annual donor filings from the Australian Electoral Commission. Google Data Studio was used to analyse and visualise findings. Results The pilot study resulted in the creation of several interactive charts and dashboards that supported analysis and interrogation of the data. These charts helped to easily convey the volume of lobbying and political donations, as well as changes over time. For example, we found that between July 2014 and December 2020, NSW ministers had 20,607 meetings, of which 634 meetings were with harmful industries. And between 1998 and 2020, a total of $576,519,472 disclosed donations were made to political parties and other entities, of which $35,823,937 were from harmful industries. Conclusions Opportunities to develop a program to monitor commercial political practices face several challenges including access barriers arising from poor availability and detail of data, technical barriers arising from the format of data disclosures and coding challenges arising from the diverse nature of the commercial sector. Despite these challenges, our pilot study demonstrates the potential to implement a monitoring program and to expand its scope to other commercial determinants of health.

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“…The Freedom of Information Act is subject to a number of exemptions, relating, for example, to public authority costs of retrieving data or commercial confidentiality [ 96 ], restricting the types and amount of data that can be requested and accessed. Investigations of this kind would be greatly facilitated by increased transparency of consultation processes, such as publishing consultation responses as standard practice, and an improved lobby register across all levels of public sector governance [ 162 ]. Because we focused on industry–policymaker interactions, we can only present a limited picture of the actual political activities that took place.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate political activity in the context of unhealthy food advertising restrictions across Transport for London: A qualitative case study

Lauber

Hunt²,

Gilmore

et al. 2021

PLoS Med

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Background Diets with high proportions of foods high in fat, sugar, and/or salt (HFSS) contribute to malnutrition and rising rates of childhood obesity, with effects throughout the life course. Given compelling evidence on the detrimental impact HFSS advertising has on children’s diets, the World Health Organization unequivocally supports the adoption of restrictions on HFSS marketing and advertising. In February 2019, the Greater London Authority introduced novel restrictions on HFSS advertising across Transport for London (TfL), one of the most valuable out-of-home advertising estates. In this study, we examined whether and how commercial actors attempted to influence the development of these advertising restrictions. Methods and findings Using requests under the Freedom of Information Act, we obtained industry responses to the London Food Strategy consultation, correspondence between officials and key industry actors, and information on meetings. We used an existing model of corporate political activity, the Policy Dystopia Model, to systematically analyse arguments and activities used to counter the policy. The majority of food and advertising industry consultation respondents opposed the proposed advertising restrictions, many promoting voluntary approaches instead. Industry actors who supported the policy were predominantly smaller businesses. To oppose the policy, industry respondents deployed a range of strategies. They exaggerated potential costs and underplayed potential benefits of the policy, for instance, warning of negative economic consequences and questioning the evidence underlying the proposal. Despite challenging the evidence for the policy, they offered little evidence in support of their own claims. Commercial actors had significant access to the policy process and officials through the consultation and numerous meetings, yet attempted to increase access, for example, in applying to join the London Child Obesity Taskforce and inviting its members to events. They also employed coalition management, engaging directly and through business associations to amplify their arguments. Some advertising industry actors also raised the potential of legal challenges. The key limitation of this study is that our data focused on industry–policymaker interactions; thus, our findings are unable to present a comprehensive picture of political activity. Conclusions In this study, we identified substantial opposition from food and advertising industry actors to the TfL advertising restrictions. We mapped arguments and activities used to oppose the policy, which might help other public authorities anticipate industry efforts to prevent similar restrictions in HFSS advertising. Given the potential consequences of commercial influence in these kinds of policy spaces, public bodies should consider how they engage with industry actors.

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Opaque: an empirical evaluation of lobbying transparency in the UK

Cited by 23 publications

References 15 publications

Life after Whitehall: The career moves of British special advisers

Life after Whitehall: The career moves of British special advisers

A proposal for systematic monitoring of the commercial determinants of health: a pilot study assessing the feasibility of monitoring lobbying and political donations in Australia

Corporate political activity in the context of unhealthy food advertising restrictions across Transport for London: A qualitative case study

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