The government’s marketing communications arm is looking at introducing a payment-by-results system across its agencies, and a spokeswoman said research agencies will be invited to contribute to the consultation. No further details are being released at present.

It is easy to understand how government advertisers could fit in to such a system – they will be paid by the success of their campaigns in changing people’s behaviour, whether that be smoking less, eating more healthily or looking before crossing the road.

But if research agencies, of which the COI has a framework of 108, are going to be clubbed together with advertisers and marketers, it is less clear how the success of their work would be measured or how responsibility might be shared between media, creative and research agencies working on the same campaign.

On the other hand the introduction of such a system could provide a steady stream of work for research agencies to measure the success of advertising and marketing campaigns.

The idea was first mooted earlier this year by George Osborne, then shadow chancellor, who said in a Guardian article that under a Conservative government any public bodies carrying out marketing campaigns would be required to state how they intend to change behaviour and that some of an ad agency’s fee would be linked to the outcome.

The COI spent more than half a billion pounds in 2008-09, with research accounting for £29.4m. The Conservatives have long argued for a reduction in its budget, and with cuts at the top of the coalition government’s agenda the COI will be under severe pressure to justify its spending.