Into the Fray for Frayne and Cummings at DfE

Michael Gove has just made two significant and shrewd appointments at the Department for Education both of whom will play an important role in improving the strategy, messaging and relationship base as DfE drives through radical changes across multiple fronts in 2011.

In a bold move the Department for Education have plucked Westbourne Communication's Director James Frayne to be it's new Director of Communications according to reports in the Guardian and PR Week.

This is a shrewd decision, as James Frayne is very well known within the field of campaigning strategy, public affairs and public relations as an innovator with a proven track record of success. He publishes a very high profile blog The Campaign War Room which the author of the UK Eduscape blog has followed for a while now and would readily recommend to anyone interested in UK and US political strategy.

One of his key tasks will be to improve the forward planning capacity of DfE communications so Ministers and Officials are better equipped to deal with negative stories and anticipate and deflect criticism of key policy initiatives. But he will also be expected to enhance the ability of the Department to communicate and involve stakeholders at the national and frontline level more effectively in the development of policy and strategy.

In a related move that has been welcomed by figures across the centre-right policy community, Michael Gove opted in late January to appoint his long-time Opposition Chief of Staff Dominic Cummings as a Special Adviser in Government.

It was a suprise to many education policy observers that Mr. Cummings, a highly experienced political strategist and ex-journalist was not appointed to DfE when the coalition was first formed.

As was widely reported both at the time and again recently, his omission from Gove's team was allegedly the result of a veto by the former Downing Street Comms chief Andrew Coulson, who was forced to resign in January 2011.

Mr. Cummings played a key supporting role in the development of Conservative education policy in Opposition, and also led on media strategy coordination for Michael Gove. Since the General Election he had been helping out in an informal capacity at the New Schools Network, the leading umbrella body supporting the development of free schools on behalf of DfE.

Michael Gove will no doubt value having one of his most trusted advisers fully plugged into the development of policy and strategy, and it will be interesting to see how DfE's strategy for engaging with schools, colleges and their key representation bodies changes in the next few months.

It would be reasonable to expect that the first priority of both Frayne and Cummings will be to restore a sense of energy and momentum to the education reform programme has been rocked by a highly pro-active anti-free schools campaign in the media, the judicial ruling on a number of canceled BSF schemes and growing opposition to the Government's new English Baccalaureate.

Getting a grip on both messaging and strategy will be crucial in the context of Budget 2011, the Pupil Premium strategy and the unfolding National Curriculum Review.