Greenhaus Public Communication
Greenhaus Public Communication Ltd has intimate links to the Labour establishment in Scotland. Its director Chris Winslow, associate director Neil Gillam and associate consultant Jo Nove have all worked for the Labour Party, often in its higher echelons. A current employee Jamie Maxton is the son of ex Labour MP John Maxton while Tony McElroy worked for Greenhaus after acting as a press officer for Scottish Labour during the 1999 Scottish election and the 2001 General Election. He is now back working for the Labour Party in its Scottish press office.
Greenhaus clearly utilise these links. They state that "Greenhaus is ideally placed to assist companies and organisations that are concerned with maximising their profile and reputation within Scottish public life" given their access to "the relatively small and interlinked networks of Scottish Politics, decision makers and the media [which] can often be difficult to penetrate".
Of course Greenhaus are ideally placed to penetrate these networks as they themselves are part of these very networks. As they suggest: "The expert only senior counsel that Greenhaus public communication brings to a client portfolio combines first-hand knowledge of the parliament and the Scottish Executive, potential policy outcomes, legislative direction, personalities and its limitations. This provides unique insight and value to any external relations strategy".
Services
Some of the the services offered by Greenhaus include:
- identifying and designing the appropriate political strategy, specific to the clients needs.
- identifying key audiences and agreeing key messages
- Networking activities to assist with profile and positioning
They also boast of "giving expert only advice, assistance and co-ordination" to help with:
- Issue management
- Government relations
- Media relation
- Procurement
Scottish Labour links
Chris Winslow was a special adviser to Donald Dewar in 1999 and worked closely with John Rafferty another special adviser and Dewar's chief of staff. Rafferty was forced to resign over an issue of reported dishonesty. Winslow went soon after. The pair were linked again after Winslow set up Greenhaus and won a lucrative PR contract with UnLtd a sort of venture philanthropy organisation engaged in 'social enterprise'. UnLtd was based in the same offices as Demos and was run by John Rafferty.
It is open to speculation whether the close links Greenhaus have to Scottish Labour help them provide some of their public affairs services. Greenhaus themselves clearly infer this. One client of Greenhaus,First Group, won a lucrative public contract when they were a client of Greenhaus. In 2004 they were awarded the £1.75 billion contract to run Scotlands railways. While Chris Winslow admitted to setting up meetings with senior First Group figures and Labour MSP's he denied any improper conduct (Sunday Times 13 June 2004). Coincidentally, Nicol Stephen, the Lib-Dem Scottish Transport Minister and now the Lib-Dem leader and Deputy First Minister, was previously employed by First Group as a consultant.[1]
Greenhaus is also represented on the Scottish Parliament Cross-Party group on Diabetes, Kate Cunningham an employee of Greenhaus was at a meeting on the second of February 2005. Incidentally, one of Greenhaus clients is the Pharmaceutical company Boston Scientific who this year, 2005, published results of their clinical trials of their new Coronary Artery disease treatment Taxus Express- Paliaxel eluting coronary stent system. They state that one of the main groups of beneficiaries could be diabetics.
Moreover another of their clients, Lloydspharmacy, is working with APCO in England. Their reasoning is as APCO UK director Martin Sawer said: 'We need to ensure Lloyds Pharmacy is engaged in the revolution in healthcare, which means making services more accessible to the public.'
Their strategy also involves courting favour in Westminster, shown by the fact that:
"It will operate a diabetes 'testing station' in the House of Commons this October, hosted by diabetes sufferer Sir Steve Redgrave, to test MPs for the condition. The company's in-store consultation areas currently offer customers blood, cholesterol and diabetes screening".
"APCO will work with Morgan Allen Moore in Wales and Green-Haus Communications in Scotland to help service the account, which it has held for the past six years". [2]
The intentions of Lloyspharmacy are there for all to see and the involement of Greenhaus in the CrossParty group is patently clear. To ensure Lloydspharmacy gain an advantage in the burgeoning 'market' of healthcare.
