Public Communication Scan of France

An information ecosystem in continuous transformation is testing the effectiveness of public communication methods. This is happening at a time when institutions need more than ever to reconnect with citizens and build their trust to tackle current crises and long-term policy challenges such as the digital and green transitions. France and other OECD countries are thus reforming how they communicate with citizens to enhance effectiveness and impact.

This Public Communication Scan of France reviews approaches and proposes recommendations for enhancing the measurement and evaluation of government communication to drive continuous improvement and achieve greater impact. A strategic and impactful government communication function is built on a clear understanding of its effects. This means systematically assessing how public communication affects citizens, policy and society and using these insights to drive continuous improvement. As this Scan illustrates, evaluation is a discipline that has long challenged communication practitioners across sectors and countries.

The communication directorates in the 10 French government ministries and public agencies examined in this Scan are not spared this challenge, though they are relatively advanced with respect to international counterparts. Evaluation of public communication is already a well-established practice within French institutions and efforts are underway to enhance its sophistication. The SIG, as the central government agency in charge of public communication, plans to build on the strengths of French communication directorates to make measurement, evaluation and learning (MEL) a foundation of their activities. This Scan identifies opportunities to boost these efforts by drawing on the practices of leading OECD peers and established standards in the field.

Overall, French institutions have largely consolidated their methods for measuring the performance of their communications and even for optimising their content to expand their reach across audience groups. However, a majority struggle to measure and understand the degree to which communication changes audiences’ actions or perceptions. Most hesitate to estimate their impact on policy objectives given their inability to isolate public communication’s contribution.

The picture is similar in other countries: few public sector organisations conduct systematic evaluations of their communications’ performance and impact or use evaluations to make better decisions. Evaluation, where it exists, is often limited to easily retrievable metrics on audience reach and basic interaction with communication content. Measuring outcomes and impact, such as people acting in accordance with a message and how this furthers policy objectives, requires more complex and costly methods as well as the skills to use them. Given this, many communicators forego such assessments. Even countries and organisations that have the most advanced practices have not yet mainstreamed them across the government.

To help the SIG strengthen the impact of public communication, this Scan recommends developing a common framework for MEL to guide widespread adoption of leading practices. To enable this shift, it also calls for investments in internal capabilities and the cultivation of a culture of measurement and continuous improvement. In addition, the Scan indicates that the SIG could use its authority over processes and approvals to nudge communication teams to integrate strategic planning and evaluation into their work.

In France, like elsewhere, one of the most common barriers to evaluation that communication directorates have cited is the fast-paced, often reactive, setting in which they operate. This context does not allow for sophisticated evaluation, which takes time and forward planning. Under-resourced teams and limited budgets similarly mean that communication departments do not prioritise evaluation.

Moreover, policy counterparts and decision makers in ministries tend to see communication as a vehicle for visibility rather than for positive change. Combined with the above pressures, this often translates into broad campaign objectives without a clear path to achieving a policy or organisational goal (with the exception of public sector recruitment campaigns). To help address this, communicators need to strengthen their role as trusted advisers to decision makers in government. Data and evidence from communication channels, public opinion surveys and evaluation are key assets to this end, as highlighted in the experiences of leading OECD countries. Communicators can draw on these data to advocate for alternative approaches and gain credibility.

Finally, the Scan also highlights the need for a whole-of-government communication strategy to consolidate efforts to improve efficiency, co-ordination, and impact underpinning a recent wave of reforms for government communication in France. The SIG’s central role and the definition of four cross-government priorities as the compass for all communication have laid the groundwork for such a strategy. Extending this outlook into an annual cross-government communication planning cycle would help optimise resources, enhance the coherence of government messaging, and allow for a more long-term strategic vision for public communication.