This document sets out the steps and considerations to be taken into account when requesting proposals from public affairs agencies. The success of a project, both for the ‘client’ and for the ‘agency’, can often depend on how the decision to work
together is taken at the outset.
For Clients, we want to stress that this is only a tool to help with your decision to select the right consultant or agency. It is not a rigid process to hinder you. Adapt this tool as necessary. Use your best judgment as to which performance and mastery
areas are most critical to your business.
Agencies can play a major part in the process of potential clients putting out a Request for Proposal by considering a number of issues in advance. These will be important in ensuring that the match between the agency and the client is best suited to the needs of the project.

Methodology

Following a debate at an ECPA Management Board Seminar a working group composed of Erik Jonnaert (Procter & Gamble), Julia Harrison (Blueprint Partners), Teemu Lehtinen (Edelman) and Rory MacMillan (Nike) prepared an extensive document which was discussed at an ECPA Consultants Roundtable in January 2005. An equal number of consultants and clients have contributed to this document at each stage. The ECPA is grateful to Maria Laptev, for her creative editorial work in producing this summary.

Recommendations

AS A CLIENT: how to prepare the process

Step 1. Define the decision-maker

PA agency selection should ideally be led by the Public Affairs manager in your company. In some cases, there won’t be a PA person available. The process should then be handled by one of the key business leaders, but it must be someone who has some understanding or experience of PA. Ideally, there would be senior manager/board involvement at the outset.

Step 2: Define your PA needs, know what you want and how to ask for it

Before selecting an agency, identify the public affairs needs you have for your project or programme. First review your own capabilities in-house and clarify where an agency could possibly add value.

Step 3: Assemble the evaluation team, decide on the assessment criteria

Ideally this process should be led by the PA manager. Identify whether you need other functions to be involved when selecting the agency. Make sure the team is appropriately assembled upfront, so that there are no issues at the back-end of the process as to who did, or did not, get to participate.

Step 4: Research & Select candidates/ agencies

The PA manager should be able to recommend agency options. Candidates can be generated by:
• checking with local, regional or global professional organisations;
• evaluating who seems to be doing the best PA work in Brussels or in other capitals;
• leveraging your closest relationships with stakeholders (e.g. in the European Commission or Parliament) to ask about the agencies they find most impressive;
• establishing whether your candidates are a member of professional PA organisation and have signed up to a PA Code of Conduct.

Step 5: Prepare the agencies for the interview

Most agencies have capabilities presentations already prepared. However, it is when meeting with the candidates that you are able to understand the potential match with your needs, well beyond the capabilities presentation.
• Getting to know each other: rather than standard credentials meetings, both sides benefit from ‘getting to know you’ meetings
• Defined briefing: objectives versus activities: The briefing should be defined in terms of the objective of the process (aims, parameters, client concerns, current priorities) rather than in terms of the mechanics (activities and tools).
• A pitch? – is a pitch necessary if several meetings have already taken place and you have decided in advance?
• Equal access: as a client, do make sure you are clear about your availability for briefings, and giving all consultancies equal access.

Step 6: Hold interview meetings with the PA agency candidates

The PA person is responsible for ensuring the interview process is clear and well defined:

• Timing
Unless there is a real crisis, aim to set a minimum time for the proposal to be made, and be clear of the decision timetables, particularly if the pitch is competitive. Then stick to them as much as possible.
• Budgets
Clear budgeting guidelines should be put forward for all RFPs. If asking for substantial amount of time and work to be invested by the agency, is there justification for paying for the proposal, particularly if original strategy and ideas are involved.

Step 7: Make the decision

Once all agencies have been interviewed, ensure that all team members participating in the evaluation process have had a chance to provide their perspective. In most cases, the team will reach consensus decision on which agency to hire.

• Feedback loop: There is real long term value for all concerned of a feed-back loop by informing the losers as well as the winners.

AS AN AGENCY: how to improve the process

Step 1: Understanding the corporate agenda

In addition to the standard “boiler plate” information about a company, it is important that the agency understands the corporate agenda for the interview. Is the client looking for an exercise in “creative thinking” or seeking a clear response to a strictly defined brief?
• Agencies need to know what keeps clients awake at night.
• What are the client’s main policy, political and commercial issues?
• What are the client’s key success criteria such as timing, unpacking of commercial aspects, milestones and tracking of progress?
• Both sides should clarify their expectations, communicating minimum as well as ideal goals.

Step 2: Establish how the client likes to work with consultants and sees their role

• The client should situate the brief. Ask at the outset who in the client company owns the project, who else is involved and what client resources are available for the project?
• Once the project is assigned, ask the client to make clear what are the factors that an agency should take into account, such as expectations relating to information flow, benchmarking, etc.

Step 3: Getting the mechanics of the process right

• It clearly matters whether an interview is with the incumbent or with a new consultant.
• The timing of the submission of credentials and written proposals and the dates of the pitch and decision need to be made crystal clear at the beginning of the process.
• On what basis is the budgetary quote to be prepared? As a project/retainer/hour or a menu with a retainer base with services added? How are expenses covered? How do your rates compare with the market rates?
• What is the length and nature of the appointment?
• Who is the decision maker, and who will sign off invoices? Are there other divisions involved?

Step 4: Criteria and issues arising in the selection process

• Conflict of interest: what is the client’s conflict policy? How does it match with the agency’s?
• Confidentiality: Is there a need for a Non Disclosure Agreement?
• People: who is the senior manager with responsibility for the account, what is their workload, have you identified the account team working on the business, is everyone involved in the pitch going to be involved on an ongoing basis?
• Creativity: how do you identify risks and issues and how do you pro-actively bring them to the client?
• Expertise: what is the relevant expertise to this project, commercially as well as issues /Institutions/relationships?
• Track record: can you refer to at least 2 clients with whom the potential client can discuss your performance?
• Network: local office affiliations in key countries/cities with senior management local-expertise and locally seasoned account teams
• Measurement: what sort of programme evaluation or self-evaluation do you share with the client?

Step 5: Agencies appreciate additional information about the client

• Where does PA fall within the organisation?
• How does it link with Corporate Communications, legal etc?
• Is the Board involved in endorsement, driving and reporting?
• Are there other consultants on the case or in related areas?
• Ask up front for areas of difficulty to be made clear (eg. potential need to reduce or increase the resource at short notice.

1. Calculation

What geographical base have we chosen to report on?
Have we checked with the Commission Guidance which PA and PR expenditures should be included?
What percentage of our total public affairs expenditure have we defined as direct lobbying activities?
Do we anticipate a substantial difference between our submission for this year and next year? If so, why?

2. Internal preparation

How much do we need to brief senior management re their involvement once we are registered?
Are there different attitudes towards Transparency in different subsidiaries and sectors of the company?
Have we talked to our offices in national capitals about lobbying activities designed to influence decision making at European level?
Have we shared our submission with all our employees involved in Comitology?
Is our draft submission compatible with submissions made under other jurisdictions?
Is it compatible with statements made in the context of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Global Reporting Initiative?
Are we registered in the European Parliament Register of Lobbyists?
Have the internal lawyers had a look at our submission?
Have we considered the tax or VAT implications of our registration?
Do we have a communications response ready if the details of our submission are challenged by transparency campaigners?
Is there value in formulating a corporate statement on our attitude to Transparency above and beyond our entry in the Register?
Do we have a corporate policy on how we want the ETI to develop under the next Commission?
Do we support a one-stop-shop register covering all the EU Institutions?
Does the Commission Code of Conduct cause us any problems?

3. Comparison with competitors

Have any of our direct competitors registered yet?
Are we comfortable that the definitions and disclosures which they have offered are equivalent to our own?
Has our Trade Association registered?
Has our Trade Association been proactive in raising discussion of this subject?
Have we reached agreement with our Trade Association on avoiding double counting of our membership fees, etc?

4. Stakeholders

Have we explained our position to relevant stakeholders?
Have our stakeholders registered yet?

5. Consultants/Lawyers

Have we shared our views with our consultants/external lawyers?
Do our views on registration agree with theirs?
Have we reached agreement on double counting?

6. Think Tanks & Networks

Have the think tanks which we support registered?
Commission guidance refers to “Any Associations/Federations or other type of networks which they belong to in the EU or the world”. Have we done an audit of
relevant organisations?

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Lobbying is central to democracy; an interest group system is – alongside parties, elections, parliaments, executives and bureaucracies – core to the workings of a free political system. But with this comes a professional responsibility to ensure appropriate standards of conduct and to be seen to be acting ethically. There is also an opportunity here for leadership and renewal on the part of those bodies which represent public affairs practitioners, ECPA included. We have a role to play in bringing together professionals; helping to train, educate and motivate them; defending their interests and values to policy-makers; and offering more proactive and vigorous direction to efforts to inform the public about the legitimate role of lobbying.

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We hope that this volume will contribute to the quality of public debate during the consideration of the Green Paper on the European Transparency Initiative. Whatever the outcome of this Initiative, the issue of Transparency will be with us as a recurring challenge. The essays in this collection bring together a number of respected professionals, observers and academics who offer a range of perspectives on the way forward.Not all of the book makes for happy reading for a function under pressure. But as Arnold Toynbee points out such pressures can bring forth new creativity and new opportunities.

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Leaders… need to pick their way through a minefield of competing realities and belief systems that echo each other. Belief is to the twenty-first century what ideology was to the twentieth… public affairs practioners need to be sensitive to the dilemmas of political power as they manoeuvre their own organisations through rough waters. Public affairs in this century is not so much about ‘stepping into the same water twice’, it is about staying convincingly afloat in a torrent of change.

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On leaving the European Parliament in 1999, former MEP and founder of the European Centre for Public Affairs, Tom Spencer, determined that he should take the opportunity to write. The 15 essays contained in this book are part of the result. They have been written on the boundaries between academic consideration and practitioner reality, and between public affairs and politics. If journalism is “the first draft of history”, these essays live on the time boundary between journalism and research; identifying trends, challenges and questions facing the world of public affairs. As such, this inspiring book is essential reading for all practitioners and students of public affairs, as well as for policy-makers, business and the media.