Should social workers listen to Max Clifford?

Peter Beresford, chair of service user organisation Shaping Our Lives

I heard mixed reports of Max Clifford's 'PR Masterclass on Improving The Image of Social Work' at Community Care Live. It was clearly an imaginative idea inviting him: getting the lion to enter the lamb's den, as it were. I hadn't trusted myself to join the audience for fear of saying the wrong thing. An earlier 'outburst' of mine when Jimmy Carr was telling discriminatory jokes at a CC Awards Ceremony had not gone unnoticed and your blogger did not want to risk any kind of excluding order being placed on him.

Talking to a full house, some felt Max Clifford was master of stating the bleeding obvious about improving social work's image. But others thought it was a good idea for social work and social care to be acting 'out of the box' as PR people like to call it. If this was a bit like sleeping with the enemy, then we might at least learn something useful as a result. And of course Mr Clifford seems quite a nice chap. He was happy to let me take his photograph (see below) and he is a beacon for how one day all of us may perhaps be able to afford world class dentistry.



But this occasion did raise for me a big question I've not yet seen asked elsewhere and which to be honest previously hadn't occurred to me. If Max Clifford is such a master of PR, how comes his own image is so bad? Isn't there a rather important contradiction here? If he is so good at polishing other people's personas, how is it that his own is so tarnished?

Most recently of course there has been the embarrassing affair of his self-proclaimed discovery of the Beatles, which Hunter Davies has dismissed, saying only that he may have "shifted a few handouts" while working for EMI at the time.

Perhaps there is a moral here for social work. Forget the specious PR. Stick to the daytime job. Do it well. Explain it honestly and clearly. Stand by your principles, especially when under attack from the less than principled strands of the media. This approach certainly seems to be making the Sun a little nervous at present. Remember the adage of that master of media relations, Corporal Jones of Dad's Army. They don't like it up 'em!!

Emma Maier, deputy editor, Community Care

"You might not like Max Clifford. His brash image, his dubious-looking-but-almost-certainly-real tan... But like him or not, if you want to change public perceptions of your profession, you must listen to his advice. Here's why.

"He has got the credentials. He is among the best in his profession; someone who can not only get stories into the press, but also keep them out. Few PRs can kill a story; he is one of them.

"He doesn't have an ulterior motive. He is pragmatic and generally supportive of social work, recognising that social work, like all professions, is not always perfect but that in the main is a hard job that benefits many in society. His agenda is not to insult social workers - his brief at the recent Community Care Live event was to give his professional opinion on how social work's image could be improved and he did just that.

"As a journalist, I can attest that his advice makes good sense. The most pertinent messages where these:

• The media has the power to choose how and whether to cover your stories, so if you want to influence them you've got to play by the press's rules. You might not like it, but that's the reality - complaining that it isn't fair won't change anything

•   You need to get more positive stories about social work out there to counter-balance the negative coverage

•   Councils need to ensure there is a strong relationship between their PR people, directors and frontline social workers.

•   The profession needs a strong voice - a representative the media can go to who speaks plainly about the realities of social work and sets reporters straight

•   You must be prepared to brief newspaper editors off the record - "no comment" does not kill a story; showing the evidence that disproves it does. Other professions do it all the time.

"In short, Max Clifford is an eminent expert without an axe to grind who is offering pragmatic advice - if he can't turn around the image of social work, no-one can. That's good enough reason for me."

 

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Listen to Max Clifford's presentation in full

Ten reasons why Social workers should talk to the press