| AdminHistory | The first report on public relations was in 1946 by T H Pear [see BPS Council Papers 25 May 1946].
The first British Psychological Society Public Relations committee was in 1955 and was a short lived working party. In 1971 Nicholas Georgiades and Professor Arthur Summerfield arranged a press conference at Brown's Hotel to draw attention to the BPS response to Sir John Foster's report on Scientology [See BPS/001/4/01/03/01]. After advice from Mr Christopher Hall, Barbara Castle's Information officer on setting up a press function - a Standing Press Committee was formed in October 1971 under the Chairmanship of Dr Georgiades.
In 1980 Alan Elliot presented a document to the Council entitled 'The Image and The Axe' BPS/001/11/04/03/04/04 expounding the view that psychology was seen by others would be a factor in government cuts which were expected. He further proposed that the Society should spend £20,000 for 'PR' activities. A meeting 'BPS 2000' was held in 1978 to [unsuccessfully] draw up a corporate plan but did lead to a report 'The Commercial Model' which recommended marketing and promotion to be a major activity of the Society. The Working Party on Public Relations [BPS/001/01/11/03] of 1983-1984 made suggestions as to an internal and external relations sub-committee and officer. After much debate and worries that calling the Committee the PR Committee would lead to an 'obscene' acronym the Standing Committee on Communications was formed.
The Standing Committee on Communications SCCOMS It was chaired by the Honorary General Secretary - Peter Morris. He was succeeded by J Graham Beaumont in May 1986 and then Ann Colley in 1989. Advise the Council on the Development of the Society's Internal and External Relations;
Serve as a Forum for Liaison between the Standing Press Committee, the Standing Committee on Publications, the Bulletin Editors;
Act as a Stimulus to Raise the Awareness of Other Society Committees and Psychologists in General to the Need to Consider the Mechanisms to be Adopted in the Promotion of a Policy;
Act as a Co-ordinating Body of Behalf of Council for Determining Priorities When Dealing With Initiatives from the Boards, Divisions, Sections and Branches and other Subsystems of the Society;
Co-ordinate the work of the staff concerned with internal and external relations;
Advise subsystems of the Society on the mounting of such Initiatives to Promote Psychology ;
The SCCOMS developed a travelling exhibition on psychology which was used as a hire/loan item; another project which arose out of university cuts was a database of the 'benefits of psychology' which it was hoped could be used as an argument if cuts were proposed in psychological services but the committee failed to get interest from BPS journals and subsystems in promoting the project; they also promoted badged BPS products; sponsored an alcohol briefing to parliament which led to the creation of a subcommittee the Parliamentary Group; BPS recruitment leaflets were produced aimed at students. The Committee also managed the process of revamping the Bulletin which led to the creation of The Psychologist magazine (Editorial Subcommittee). Another project was the Charter promotion group; guide to non-sexist language; committee skills workshop (which led to a Training and Support Group) and TV training.
The Committee was reviewed 1989-1990 during which some subsystems felt that it was not fulfilling its aims particularly in internal communication and in 1991 an Information Committee was formed which had a more coordinating role of individual tasks with representation from the Boards. The Information Committee also took on responsibility for the Press Committee which had previously been a Standing committee of Council.
The Information Committee became the Communications Committee/Board in 1998 as part of the Society's strategic plan. This became the Publications and Communications Board in 2000. The Press Committee was renamed the Media and Press Committee in April 2009.
The Society was restructured in 2017 with the creation of three new strategy boards Education and Training, Practice, Research and Public Affairs. |
| Copyright | Subject to the condition of the original, copies may be supplied for private research use only on receipt of a signed undertaking to comply with current copyright legislation. Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the Head of the History of Psychology Centre and Archives and, where appropriate, from the copyright owner. Where possible, assistance will be given in identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material |