Right and Wrong Reasons for Privatisation, Especially When Legal Information Is Concerned

It may seem somewhat removed and distant from the narrow world of legal information publishing, but I was concerned to read that Williams Lea, within which sits TSO (formerly The Stationery Office in the UK) has been sold to R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company (RRD), in which Chatham Asset Management has a controlling stake; RRD’s interest in acquiring TSO appears to go back many years. TSO is the result of the then Conservative Government’s privatisation of HMSO, which, prior to that, was similar in character to the GPO in the USA and equivalent official printing and publishing entities around the world. RRD is a US and International business which, before it was acquired by the hedge fund, had, as members of the boards of some of its companies, certain key TSO senior board members.

It was as long ago as in October 1996, after over 200 years of operating at HMSO, that the Stationery Office became a limited company, with National Publishing as its publishing division. Its shift from the public to the private sector was a notable event, and with it was created one of the UK’s largest and most diverse commercial information publishing businesses.

I took on the role of the first-ever managing director of National Publishing. At that time, the internal view was that, based on size and scale, TSO could become a publishing market leader in more than ten sectors, including business and professional, science, education, culture and heritage and government. Although it was obvious that such an objective was absurd, shamefully, it seemed not a time and place to make my heroic protest. During my time there, I wrote an article entitled “It’s Spelt with an ‘e’” for the BIALL’s journal, then called The Law Librarian (now Legal Information Management), vol. 28, no.3, September 1997, 157, on how the new business might work with the legal library community. Although the content of the article was mine, it was approved for publication at the time by TSO and, therefore, on message. I thought it might be of interest review the extent to which reality took it along different paths.

Since its inception, a history of co-operation and a mutually beneficial and dependent relationship between law librarians and what had been HMSO had been nurtured. It had served to create a body of legal and other documentation and the basis for a future in electronically delivered information, although, in truth, it was not a value-adding publisher, with the internal expertise or power to generate and alter authored, technical legal content. A feature of the relationship, and perhaps one that served to sustain it, was that there was, nevertheless, a degree of trust and reliance placed by law librarians, legal academics and practising lawyers, in their many guises, on The Stationery Office. This was in contrast to their perceived attitudes to commercial law publishers. There was a justifiable expectation of optimum standards of accuracy, authenticity and service derived from being the contracted provider of official sources of regulatory and other information. Still, the privatisation must inevitably have been of concern to law librarians and legal information specialists as to what would be the implications for them in doing their jobs, as a consequence of the establishment of the new company. The obvious promise was of the same as before – but more, and better.

The business was set up on the basis of a number of contractual commitments with government. What this meant was that, under controlled and monitored conditions, it would continue to publish key government and Parliamentary documents (e.g., all, bills, statutes and statutory instruments, Hansard and other Parliamentary papers and the Belfast, Edinburgh and London Gazettes). In addition, it would continue to work in partnership with government departments, agencies and others to publish their official information. Certain contracts were for periods of a few years, and under scrutiny, and could be terminated if performance were not sustained at required standards. Others were for shorter periods or for individual projects. They were often subjected to market-testing and were, again, monitored. The future was not taken for granted, and The Stationery Office was aware that its long-term survival and success were dependent on performance and customer satisfaction.

A unique aspect of how The Stationery Office publishing business worked was its mutual dependence on other publishing partners. At that time and subsequently, these partners were, for the most part, connected with national or local government, but were not exclusively so. The historical base of the business had allowed it to create skills in working with partners such as professional and trade bodies, academic institutions, non-governmental organisations and other publishers, to create products, both print and electronic, which might otherwise not exist. It was very much an intention to expand the already large number of publishing partnerships. A stated priority was a resolve to develop partnerships whose purpose would be to increase dramatically the range of products and services, in response to the information needs of the legal community.

As to those information requirements of the legal community, law librarians, their colleagues and their internal clients, as they were among the most important customers of The Stationery Office, they were said to be paramount. The breadth of subject matter of the company’s portfolio was great, particularly bearing in mind its statutory publishing output. Additionally, it supplied regulatory and other information, much of it law-based in character, in a number of specialist areas. Among these were transport, the environment, health, medicine and social welfare, education, employment, the regulatory control of business and the professions. One of the features, however, which distinguished The Stationery Office from others, insofar as it perceived law librarians and the legal community as core customers, was its ability to satisfy total, rather than narrowly defined information needs. Lawyers do not just need to know about law. They must have information also on a whole range of topics, such as business, social, financial and other statistics and trends, commercial and industry practice, medical, health, education and environmental developments. They need to know about local, national and international government policy and plans. All this, along with the essential regulatory information and guidance, is what was claimed to be on offer from the new business, as it then was.

The stated objective for the future of The Stationery Office’s publishing business was, first and foremost, to be a leading supplier of information from, for and about the public sector; this represented its core base. It is what gave it its competitive edge and reflected its greatest area of skills. But in a fast-changing world, further development was both inevitable and necessary, driven by new opportunities, market demands and technological innovation. These factors and others were intended to ensure that existing products, services and methodologies would continue to evolve. Good market research and continuous contact and communication with customers would ensure that such developments were the right ones. With such an enormous portfolio of products and services already in existence, future opportunities to grow new products, to link important bodies of data and to add further value, were considered to be great.

With those historical roots in the public service sector and through working with others in that sector, TSO ought to have had an understanding of the problems of and constraints on people working in law librarianship and information. Budgets are rarely adequate, and creative solutions would always be required to do the job more effectively, even with reduced resources. Regular contact with BIALL and its individual members as well as with other organisations and committees would, it was hoped, be a key feature of how business would be done. In this way, needs, wishes and growth initiatives could be discussed in a creative way. There would be efforts to improve customer service – again in consequence of hearing directly what the customers had to say.

That was then, a generation or more ago, when an aim was to turn the business from a previously non-profit environment into one of market leading margins built around radical business re-engineering, product management and development. However, in my personal opinion, it was inappropriate to privatise the UK government’s official printer and publisher. Perhaps the pillar-to-post path which TSO has found itself taking, further enriching a few unworthy and undeserving people, might support the view. For now, TSO is owned by Williams Lea Group, which, prior to being sold, was owned by Advent International, a private equity investor. But many more changes have happened since privatisation; The Stationery Office was initially purchased with two-thirds of it being held by Electra Fleming, an investment trust co-owned by Electra Investment and the investment bank, Robert Fleming & Company. The controversial former deputy governor of the Bank of England, Rupert Pennant-Rea, together with Bob Thian, who had multiple business interests in earlier denationalised sectors, built on an allegedly autocratic and combative reputation which preceded him, and one other, purchased significant shareholdings in the business. In 1999, Electra Fleming sold TSO to its existing management team and Apax, a private equity firm. It was sold in 2006 to the business process outsourcing company Williams Lea, of which a majority stake had been acquired by logistics company Deutsche Post DHL earlier that year. Then, in 2017, Deutsche Post sold Williams Lea to Advent International.

Nowadays, TSO, as it has evolved, targets organisations which create guidance, standards and regulation to make it easier to use and understand them. It deals with content management for authoritative information, so that it is structured, accurate and up-to-date, to help users perform better, whether by complying with regulations, adopting best practice or improving safety. To this, perhaps narrow, extent, law and legal compliance would seem still to be in focus. Of course, self-described as a “publishing partner”, it would be wrong, in my view, to see it now as a law publisher.

The past is long since gone and largely forgotten but I would hope that the legacy of The Stationery Office survives its evolution from the UK government to a New Jersey-based hedge fund in present-day USA. RRD is a large operation, generating $5.4 billion annual revenue; maybe it will all turn out fine.