WORKING RELATIONS WITH THE MINISTRY OF FOOD.

Mr. Vaughan and I went to sec Mr. Vincent at the Ministry of Food this afternoon at my suggestion to arrange the details under which we would work together on Food Economy and other campaigns which we would handle on their behalf. Mr. Clayton Young and Mr. Howard Marshall were also present for the Ministry of Food.

To my surprise I found that the argument was starting again from the very beginning and that there was no recognition of the distinction reported by Mr. Woodburn, viz., that the Ministry of Food would be responsible for all publicity directed towards technical instruction of the trade, etc., and that the Ministry of Information should be responsible for all publicity directed to the public.

Mr. Vincent insisted that the ultimate responsibility for both content and form of the advertisements must rest with his Minister since it could not be denied that any campaign in food was the Minister of Food's campaign. He also felt that it was vital that they at Food should have the power to instruct the Agent and the Agent's copywriters directly, and I told him that that certainly would be our opinion, too, and that we would place no obstacle in the way of frequent meetings between them.

On the planning of the campaign, the allocation of expenditure between different types of media, etc., I felt that we must come in, and also on questions of form and style. If the Minister of Information were to be entrusted with the responsibility of these campaigns, then I myself would be responsible to my Minister. When asked what their proposed method of working would be, Mr. Clayton Young suggested that they should see the Agent, brief him, discuss the plans, and finally present what was in effect a completed scheme to me for my opinion. It was even said that the part the Ministry of Information would play would be “to foot the bill”.

The fundamental difficulty is of course that you have here a whole section of the Ministry of Food which is devoted to Public Relations. Vincent, though a Civil Servant, has, I believe, been on work of this kind for some time, e.g., A.R.P.; Clayton Young is a professional advertising man, being Publicity Manager of Ford; and Howard Marshall is the well- known journalist and broadcaster.

There are now, I think, three alternatives before the Ministry of Information:-

(1) If we pay the bill, then we must accept responsibility and see that this is recognised;

(2) We can hand back all Ministry of Food publicity to them; or

(3) We can hand back Ministry of Food publicity while remaining as consultants without responsibility and of course without paying the bill on our vote.

Apart from payment, (3) is in fact what Food would appear to want to happen so far at any rate as advertising is concerned.

I promised. Mr. Vincent that I would think over and let him have in writing our considered opinion of the best method of working between the two Ministries, and a draft outline is attached.

It is obvious, I think, that such arrangements will only work with real good will and co-operation on both sides, and from the way that the Ministry of Food keep returning back to their original point of view, I cannot feel that this will be enjoyed. I feel therefore that the handling of the Ministry of Food publicity may well mean that too much time and attention is given to smoothing out procedure and differences of opinion which should really be devoted to our major task of propaganda on the home front.

I think that both Vaughan and myself and Chetham-Strode - who is the man I had in mind for constant contact on this work- are all people who could and would get on well personally with the people at Food.

Other instances of campaigns where co-operation because of vested interests may be difficult are “Evacuation” (Ministry of Health), “Grow More Food” (Agriculture), and any campaign which involves co-operation with the National Savings Committee.

23rd February. 1940.