Government Information Services

Abstract

THE Central Office of Information was established on April 1, 1946 to take over a wide but closely specified range of duties from the Ministry of Information. Its first annual report* is of particular interest as giving the first available descripiton of the general organisation of the Government information services and of the responsibilites and activites of the Central Office. The report emphasizes that the Central Office of Information is not a policy department, and that the responsibility for information and publicity policy in Britain always rests with the ministerial department covering the field into which the subject falls. Primarily the Office is a professional and technical service agency for nearly forty departments, being responsible for producing information or publicity material required by them, and being treated as the expert in presentation. It performs various other services which do not entail the production of material ; but any general influence it exerts in the nature and efficiency of information services derives from its relative size and central function, rather than from its constitutional powers. Apart from the fact that the Central Office itself employs no staff overseas, a similar relation exists between the Central Office and the Information Departments of the Overseas Departments and of the Board of Trade.