Cllr Ken Meeson, from Solihull Council writes for the Local Government blog accusing the TaxPayers' Alliance of getting our facts wrong and only knocking councils, not praising those that do a good job. His article is a mix of distortion and ignorance about our work. Tellingly, while Cllr Meeson has responded by bashing our study, Eric Pickles, Conservative Local Government spokesman, responded to our report with a press release saying "I welcome the publication of this information, as it will help the press and public hold their councils to account for the spending of taxpayers’ money" and attacking Government plans that could weaken controls on council publicity spending.
We have praised councils when they do good work. Hammersmith and Fulham's cuts in council tax, for example. In the most recent edition of the report which Cllr Meeson seems to be responding to, TPA Chief Executive Matthew Elliott was quoted as saying that "we salute the 217 councils who have cut spending on publicity." That praise is extended to Solihull council - we included them in our list of the "20 councils with the greatest decrease in spending on publicity from 2006-07 to 2007-08". Unfortunately, 225 councils have increased their spending on publicity and many others are still spending eye-watering amounts.
Equally, while we do only look at publicity spending in this report it forms a part of the Council Spending Uncovered series. Other papers look at the amount spent on pay and pensions. Of course, that doesn't mean the series constitutes a complete examination of council performance. Looking at over 400 councils takes a lot of time and, while we always try to do more, that does limit the number of spending areas we can cover. The areas we choose to focus on might not be Cllr Meeson's preferred standard but pay, publicity and pensions are areas where many people are rightly concerned that too much of their money is being spent.
Cllr Meeson berates us for only using the amount they spend on "publicity" reported in their accounts, rather than some narrower definition he prefers. Surely he knows that the reason we've done that is that councils are forced to report their spending on publicity in their annual accounts and normally don't provide any more information (the spurious £50,000 figure for spending on "PR" he produces for CH has never been aired before). While Solihull do break the total down a little (into staff advertising and other publicity spending) they don't supply us with more detailed information. We are an outside body and have to work with what councils give us.
Councils were required, by the 1986 Local Government Act, to report the amount they spent on publicity. That requirement was put in place to increase transparency and scrutiny. It is one way we have of getting an idea of how councils spend taxpayers' money and can be compared across different councils (if we use councils' own breakdown there is no guarantee the figures will be comparable). It is absolutely the function of the TaxPayers' Alliance to put that information to the public, even if that inconveniences a few councillors.
Cllr Meeson provides an exhaustive list of things that the publicity budget covers. Some of these certainly aren't inherent wastes of money. However, this is clearly an area where savings can be made: There are absurd wastes of money like The Londoner, which Boris Johnson scrapped saving £2.9 million. The tiny Isles of Scilly council has saved money by advertising for staff on free recruitment websites. Hammersmith and Fulham saved money by allowing local businesses to advertise in council publications.
Cllr Meeson also has his facts wrong. I don't know where he gets the £3 million figure he cites from, the only relevant result that Google provides when I search "solihull £3 million spin" is his blog. Our report states quite clearly that the council spent nearly £1.4 million in 2006-07 and £992,000 in 2007-08. icSolihull reports the same £1.37 million figure. Still, the amount Solihull Council spent in 2006-07 and 2007-08 is much larger the £557,000 they spent in 1996-97. Cllr Meeson's constituents might want to ask him what has changed to justify that big increase in spending.
