Research, Information and Communications Unit

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Creation and purpose

The Sunday Times reported in December 2007 that:

The alleged airline plot in August 2006 caused another of the government’s periodic rethinks. For all the work on pursuing terrorists, the government realised that its strategy on preventing more taking their place was not working. After a bureaucratic tussle, the Home Office has become the centre for a new strategic hub for all counterterrorism policy: the Office of Security and CounterTerrorism.
The rethink also led to the creation of the nebulously titled Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU). Officials deny this is in any way a propaganda department, although one conceded: “It does sound horribly cold war.”
Its task is to analyse the way in which key audiences at home and abroad (in other words, Muslims) react to messages from the government and to try to give more coherence to those messages to undermine the ideology of Al-Qaeda. In the counterterrorist jargon of the day, its job is to build and promote a counter-narrative to the single narrative that Al-Qaeda and its allies propagate. “You can do it without it looking like government propaganda, because if it looks too much like government propaganda then I don’t think people are going to listen, nor should they,” argues Mottram.[1]

Size and staffing

June 2007- 3 members of staff

Sept 2007- 8

Dec 2007- 10

Mar 2008- 12

Jun 2008- 17

Sept 2008- 28

Dec 2008- 33 (including secondees)

Budget

2008/2009 Budget:

Total programme budget: £2,172,610

Home Office contribution: £660,000

Foreign and Commonwealth Office contribution: £810,073

Department of Communities and Local Government contribution: £702,537

Administration Budget:

Pay: £806,138

Non-Pay: £153,167

2009/2010 Proposed Budget:

Total programme budget: £5,700,000

Home Office contribution: £1,200,000

Foreign Commonwealth Office contribution: £3,000,000

Department of Communities and Local Government contribution: £1,500,000

Administration Budget:

Pay: £867,000

Non-Pay: £154,000

Structure

As of March 2009, the RICU consists of the Head of Unit and his Personal Assistant. The Head of Unit oversees two branches. Both of the branches has a Deputy Head and separate teams.

Audience Research & Knowledge (ARK) Branch

This branch includes five teams.

Research and Knowledge: team leader and 2 staff

Analysis: team leader and 2 staff

CONTEST communications: team leader

Strategic Development: team leader plus 2 staff

Specialists: Digital Media Specialist, Audience Insight Specialist, Information Specialist

External Delivery Branch

This branch includes four teams.

Campaigns: team leader and 2 staff

Interventions: team leader and 2 staff

News Coordination: team leader and 4 staff

Local Communications: team leader and 3 staff

Activities

Jonathan Allen at a panel discussion called"Words Matter: The Role of Lexicon in Counter-Terrorism Communications Strategy" June 24, 2008

Language of Counter-Terrorism

The RICU demands civil servants not to use phrases such as "Islamist extremism" and "jihadi-fundamentalist." This is due to the fact that the organization wishes to thwart any ideas of a fundamental connection between islamic beliefs and terrorism. Civil servants are required to refer to terrorism and terrorist groups as "violent extremism," "criminal murderers," and "thugs."

Conference presentations

On June 24, 2008, Jonathan Allen (head of RICU) was featured at a panel discussion called "Words Matter: The Role of Lexicon in Counter-Terrorism Communications Strategy." The discussion was hosted by the Homeland Security Policy Institute. The other featured speakers were Daniel Sutherland (Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the US Department of Homeland Security), and Jeffrey Imm, (research director for the Counterterrorism Blog and former analyst with the FBI).

On Tuesday, 7 October 2008 at 15:00, Jonathan Allen, Head of the RICU, spoke at a conference called "Public Diplomacy: Meeting New Challenges" held at Wilton Park in West Sussex. He spoke during a section of the conference called, "How to Change Public Behavior: A Foreign Policy Context." His fellow speakers during this section of the conference included Klavs Holm (Under Secretary, Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Copenhagen), and David Kenning (Chief Strategist, Bell Pottinger Sans Frontieres, London).

RICU discussed with Pakistan government

November 2008, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith met with Pakistan's Information and Broadcasting minister Sherry Rehman at the House of Commons to discuss bilateral issues and combating terrorism. Smith said that military force alone will not stamp out terrorism. Smith discussed the British counter-terrorism strategy, which is the RICU, with Rehman. Smith said that the RICU "...plans advances and amplifies the objectives in today's crowded mobile world." She then said that Rehman has Britain's support in creating and implementing a similar organization in Pakistan. Rehman discussed Pakistan's problem with terrorism using the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto as an example.

People

The RICU was created as a result of the advice of Dr. J. P. Macintosh, who is currently the head of the Advanced Research and Assessment Group (ARAG) for the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. "He catalysed the use of a "war room" facility to begin building the capacity needed to transform the Home Office. His advice was "instrumental in the creation of the Office of Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT) and the Research Information & Communication Unit (RICU)."[2]

Staff

Journalists in touch with RICU

Others in contact

Resources, Publications, Contact

Resources

Publications

  • CounterTerrorism Communications Guidance: Communicating Effectively with Community Audiences (RICU/12/07), September 2007[6]

Contact

http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/RICU/

Notes

  1. ↑ Gordon Corera Don’t look now, Britain’s real spooks are right behind you The Sunday Times December 2, 2007
  2. ↑ Defence Academy Dr. J. P Macintosh, accessed 6 May 2009
  3. ↑ Newsxchange 08 Delegate List 2008, accessed 20 April 2009
  4. ↑ Jim Armstrong, Candace J. Chin, Uri Leventer The Language of Counter-Terrorism: When Message Received is Not Message Intended Harvard Kennedy School Policy Analysis Exercise, Prepared for the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office, British Consulate-General, New England, April 2008: Acknowledgements
  5. ↑ Stephen Rimmer Allegations made in the Panorama programme 'Muslim First - British Second' on Monday 16 February, 17 February 2009, accessed 1 April 2009
  6. ↑ cited in Home Office Part 2 of the government's Prevent Strategy, Objective 5: Addressing Grievances, published 3 June 2008, p.44. accessed 7 February 2009
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