Lobbying in the United Kingdom
Formal procedures enable individual members of the public to lobby their Member of Parliament but most lobbying activity centres on corporate, charity and trade association lobbying, where organisations seek to amend government policy through advocacy. Companies and individuals who operate in this sector commonly use the terms "public relations", "public affairs", "political consultancy" or "corporate affairs" to describe their activities (though this was also a reaction to the negative publicity surrounding the word "lobbyists" following the 1994 Cash-for-questions affair). Professional public affairs agencies, representing multiple clients, undertake a significant proportion of lobbying activity in addition to individual organisations conducting lobbying on an in-house basis.
Public Affairs Operations Center
A public affairs operations center is one of the four types of public affairs (military) units in the United States Army. In function and size, the closest equivalent is a battalion headquarters. Informally known as press camp headquarters, PAOC's are corps- or theater-level public affairs units tasked with providing press camp services and facilities to accredited members of the media in support of combined operations and joint operations. In addition to providing workspace and services, the PAOC provides command and control staff, planning and supervision of operations performed by subordinate public affairs units. The PAOC is also responsible for registering and escorting news media representatives, assisting in deploying media pools and coordinating logistical support for a media operations center.