Spin doctors at £5,300 a time
SPIN doctors at Ben Bradshaw’s Culture Media and Sport department are being paid an average of £64,000 a year and each press release they write costs taxpayers an astonishing £5,300.
His department—dubbed the Ministry of Fun—employs 11 press officers to bolster the image of ministers and to churn out Government propaganda.
Official figures obtained by the Conservatives show that the 11-strong team cost £706,643 last year, with each employee earning, on average, the same as an MP.
Over the past four years, spending on spin doctors at the department has soared by more than 50 per cent—about four times the rate of inflation.
Yet in that time, the number of press releases issued has actually fallen from 157 in 2005 to 131 last year.
Last night, Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said such spending would be targeted as part of a Tory drive to cut Whitehall budgets by a third.
He said: “At a time when budgets for the arts and sports are being cut, it is extraordinary that the Government is paying press officers this amount of money.
“The fact that the department had increased expenditure on press officers by half over just four years shows that Government spending is completely out of control.
“The Government need to get a grip on spending and allocate funding to the front line where it belongs.”
However, spokesman for the department described the Tory calculations as “puzzling” and insisted his team was paid fairly.
He said the totals included employer National Insurance contributions and overtime payments at the rate of time-and-a-half for Saturday shifts and double time on Sundays.
He added: “We do far more than just issue press releases. We provide a 24 hour duty media and news service, we write speeches and organise briefings.”
Among last year’s press releases, Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell featured most prominently as spin doctors detailed her many jaunts around Britain.
Last January, they informed the nation that she had visited a factory in Doncaster that is building steel cables for the Olympic stadium.
In May, the country was told of her visit to Glasgow to “see how businesses and sport in the city are capitalising on the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games”.
And last November, journalists were asked to report that she had toured Oxford and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, again to “see how business, sport and education are capitalising on the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games”.
Culture Minister Barbara Follett was also keen to boast her work.
Among her press releases last year was an announcement that a temporary export bar on 11 dresses designed by the early Twentieth century French couturier, Madeleine Vionnet.
The ban was an attempt to allow enough time to save the dresses for the nation.
Other figures released last week show that the department also spent £517,000 on staff bonuses for “outstanding contributions” last year.
It also rewarded staff £600,000 in 2004 and 2005, the years when the department underestimated the Olympic budget by a factor of four.
