TNAG-1391-FCO40-1863-Future-of-Hong-Kong-briefing-for-meetings-and-visits-1985 — Page 16

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

BACKGROUND BRIEFS

Telephone 01-

273 4206

Your reference

Our reference

Date

PBB 310/1

27 March 1985

1

The PUS remarked last year that Background Briefs had acquired a reputation for objectivity and reliability in many countries and that they could play a useful role in the furtherance of our interests. It has been said that a good Background Brief properly deployed can be effective in winning support for our contentious policies and should be considered as a diplomatic/information weapon. Responses to a trawl which we carried out in 1981 (Keith MacInnes' Information Department circular letter of 14 January 1981) confirmed that Background Briefs enjoyed an excellent reputation and that they were regarded as a valuable source of briefing. The replies at

that time indicated that

the level of output and the range of subjects was about right. Comments subsequently in your AIRS and in the letters from some 30 posts who replied to the PUS's circular letter of 6 August 1984 on Information Policy have generally supported that view.

2 The staffing and financial resources available for information work are being continually reduced however and we need to be certain that we are spending our limited funds wisely and are making the most effective use of our staff. Background Briefwriting costs are over £300,000 p.a. and twenty staff are engaged full or part-time on the job. We need to know therefore whether you consider that the Background Brief is still an effective information tool and if so, whether you get enough of them or too few, whether they are on the right lines, whether they are generally too long or too short, whether they are timely or whether you are receiving them too late, whether you need more of them translated into the main foreign languages, whether the title should be more stimulating, or whether you feel that £300,000 would be better spent on some other information tool. This means another questionnaire I fear

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