Uhm...sorry.

The Damian McBride email scandal rumbles on – primarily because of a quiet Easter – and Prime Minister Gordon Brown continues to refuse to apologise to the Tories. This has got me thinking about another tricky issue that PRs have to deal with: making public apologies on behalf of their organisation.

Over the years, there have been a number of occasions on which I have argued that a public apology was necessary only to find management teams swayed by the views of the legal department. Lawyers, being a highly risk-averse breed, will give the same advice: we shouldn’t apologise because this could be interpreted as an admission of liability. Unfortunately, this is usually incorrect and fails to recognise the skill with which a PR can draft a suitable apology.

Some years ago, when I worked at Lloyd’s of London, I can recall a particular minor crisis of its own making when the market’s lawyers advised that an apology could not be issued because of the risk of this being seen as an admission of failure on its behalf. But when I produced my draft of the proposed apology, they had to withdraw their comments. I’m paraphrasing, but what I wrote was essentially this: we’re sorry we upset you. Even the most hardened insurance lawyers had to admit that such a statement admitted nothing other than a failure to take someone’s feelings into account.

Corporate apologies are a valid means of communication and need to be part of any organisation’s PR toolkit. There may be rare occasions on which an apology cannot be issued, but they are far, far fewer than most lawyers would initially accept. Most importantly, apologies need to be used when the organisation has incurred the wrath of private individuals or smaller organisations – the David versus Goliath scenario. These situations are, by their nature, emotionally charged and can only be cooled by the issuing of a genuine apology. Mr Brown, take note.

PS Finally, on Thursday 16 April, Mr Brown apologised. Thanks goodness for that. Now we all feel better, don’t we.  This is how the BBC reported the prime minister’s tactical deployment of the ’s’ word.

Written by Adrian Beeby