Close-Up: Newsmaker - Quiet revolutionary makes mark on Whitehall.(Howell James manages government communications)

Howell James is working to overhaul the Government's communications machine.

When Howell James became the Government's communications chief in July 2004, he was worried that Labour would distrust him because he was a Tory, the Conservatives would think he had defected to Labour and his fellow civil servants would not know what to make of him.

So the Government's first permanent secretary for communications decided to tread carefully. The fact that a general election was in the offing made him even more cautious.

But the first fruits of his behind-the-scenes work are becoming visible as he seeks to re-engineer Whitehall's huge press, advertising and marketing machine for today's changing communications world. And he is finally, if cautiously, emerging from the shadows.

James wants the Government Communications Network to do what the best of the private sector has been doing for some time - connecting with its customers. People place more trust in personal networks than traditional news or advertising, he believes.

'Old communication doesn't work any more with audiences who are sceptical, distracted and indifferent - and at the same time vocal, demanding and insistent,' he says.

His three-year 'Engage' programme of civil service training, courses and seminars launched last week. It is designed to make communications an integral part of policy development and delivery, rather than a last-minute add-on when departments want to put out a press release.