Caerphilly Welsh Assembly candidate, Owen Meredith, has blasted Caerphilly County Borough Council for spending more than half a million pound of taxpayers money of self promotion over the last 5 years.
A freedom of information request submitted by Mr Meredith revealed that CCBC has spent £512,000 on its ‘Newsline’ publication between 2005/6 and 2010/11. The council has refused to reveal its full marketing budget under the same request.
Mr Meredith commented:
“Councillors should be ashamed. Caerphilly Council are spending the taxes of more than 110 council tax payers every year on this shameless self promotion. The true cost of council propaganda has been hidden by the council, who have refused by request for details of the full marketing and publicity budget, which is likely to run to many multiples of this figure. I will continue to fight for transparency and to get this figure exposed.”
“The expansion of the Newsline paper in recent years has moved far away from its original function to provide information to residents. Instead it has been used for political purposes to promote certain councillors and pet projects.
“As well as the huge cost to taxpayers, council propaganda has become a competing force with independent local media. An independent media is a vital part of democracy. The council must roll back their publicity operations to protect that independent voice and support local newspapers.”
Mr Meredith also pointed out that Local Authorities in England have been instructed by Central Government to limit the cost and scope of council publications, with guidelines being revised to limit the publications to no more than two per year. He said:
“The UK Government has taken action to protect taxpayers, support local newspapers and limit propaganda. I will be pushing the Welsh Assembly Government to take similar action and will do all I can to protect taxpayers interests and support growth and diversity in local media.”
