Fleishman-Hillard

Fleishman-Hillard ((http://www.fleishmaneurope.com/Cities/Edinburgh.html)) is one of the biggest PR companies in the world with over 80 offices worldwide. Its parent company is the Omnicom group Inc ((http://www.omnicomgroup.com/)), which is a huge conglomerate that describes itself as a "global leader in Marketing and Global Communications".

The Fleishman-Hillard office in Edinburgh was originally set up as GPC in 1996 ahead of the establishment of a Scottish Parliament in 1999.

They boast that "Within Scotland, we are unrivalled in the depth and breadth of our knowledge on the detail of devolution and how the Scottish Parliament really operates in practice".

They go on to say:

"We pride ourselves on our understanding of how the Scottish political, policy, and media agendas impacts the rest of the United Kingdom and companies and organisations and their businesses. We can make a difference to our clients' business objectives by combining the right resources, people, and skills with a clear perspective and an innovative approach to any communications challenge".

They conclude by stating:

"Our team is drawn from a range of career backgrounds, bringing together political experience, policy development insight, strategic communications, event management, and research skills. The common factors among the team are our commitment to our clients and assurance that we will keep their needs at the top of our agenda".

And finally:

"To make ourselves as valuable to our clients as they are to us."®

One way that they may make themselves valuable to their clients, in Scotland, and keep their needs at the top of their agenda, is by attending Scottish parliament cross-party group meetings that may affect their clients. For example, the cross-party food group was attended by two employees, Jenni Wilkie and Ben Bosely Walker, in February of 2005. This may have something to do with Tesco being a client of theirs. Curiously, Tesco being a client has not been declared to the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC) by Fleishman-Hillard. This is despite Tesco being a case study, on their website, of how they can assist clients. According to the same blurb Tesco has been a client since 1997, yet no declaration has been made in the APPC regsister. See ((http://www.appc.org.uk/registers/APPC_register_Dec04-May05.pdf))

They also have a presence on the Civil Nuclear Group, in the form of Rachael Robertson. She has joined though saying that she is from the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive, (NIREX), and not as an employee from Fleishman-Hillard. She is also on the cross party group for Diabetes. This time she is listed as working for GPC, rather than Fleishman-Hillard. Their involvement in this group is unsurprising given them having Pfizer as a client. Who, according to them, are now, amongst MSPS, "the most favoured pharmaceutical company operating in Scotland today", due in no small part to the efforts of Fleishman-Hillard of course. An employee of GPC, Ben Collins is also listed as being a member of the Oil group, with still no update ackowledging the change of name and ownership to Fleishman-Hillard. While finally Jenni Wilkie is listed as being a member of the Tackling Debt group, but yet again as being an employee of GPC and not of Fleishman Hillard.

As can be seen therefore it is clear that Fleishman-Hillard are busy gleaning valuable information and building important contacts in areas of strategic importance to their clients. For some unknown reason, however, when doing so they have not been accurate, or at least have not updated their change of employer, when joining these groups.