| 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 1977 Alan Elliot presented a document to the Council entitled 'The Image and The Axe' 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. 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.
Stephen White joined the BPS staff as Director of Communications in 1985 and started organising press, communications and pr activities as well as regular media training.
By October 1991 the Press Committee was no longer a standing committee but a subcommittee of the Information Committee which took over from the Standing Committee on Communications that year.
The Information Committee was founded in October 1990 to replace the Standing Committee on Communications and the Standing Press Committee with aim of being the managing and co-ordinating body for the Society's public relations and communications activities. Individual activities were to be undertaken by a network of responsibility holders - Honorary Officers who presented their action plans to the committee. The aim was to have a flexible structure for short and long term projects as well as reactive to external events or subsystems needs. It was not envisaged that this network would be responsible for all communications activity but provide training, advice, support and action plans. Initially there were four responsibility holders:
Mike Burton (Press and Media) - replaced by Margaret Mitchell October 1993
John Sheppard (Parliament)
James Thompson (TV)
Ann Colley (Charter Promotion - taking over from the Charter Promotion Group).
There were added two additional posts:
Richard Kwiatkowski (Membership Qualifications - appointment October 1991)
John Cooper (Recruitment - appointment January 1992)
Members of the Committee included the responsibility holders, the President, Honorary Treasurer, Honorary General Secretary, representatives from the Boards, The Psychologist Editorial Committee and the Books and Special Projects Group.
The Committee was initially chaired by Anne Colley but Ray Bull became chair on 1 November 1991, in 1993 Mike Burton became Chair until 1996 when the role was taken by John Groger.
In 1995 the Committee was replaced by a smaller experimental Information Group which met bimonthly.
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. |
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