Tories slam Welsh Government for spending over £2 million a year on “Labour spin”
The Welsh Government has come under fire for the amount of money it spends on press officers following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the Welsh Conservatives.
The figures obtained via the FOI reveal £1,002,995 of public money is being spent on staff to communicate Welsh Government activities.
The request also confirmed the government doesn’t hold historical information on the number of press officers, or the amount previously spent on the department.
The £1m of current expenditure is used to employ 24 members of staff, including a Head of News, earning around £70,000.
The average salary for a full-time staff member in the press and media department is £44,000.
The total spent on press officers matches expenditure of £1,100,923 on special advisors – up £200k since the start of the pandemic – bringing the total spend on what the Tories describe as “Labour spin” to over £2 million per year.
Sky-high
“Given the Labour Government mainly just parrot the same old line that Westminster is to blame for the world’s ills, even in devolved areas, I’m surprised to see such a sky-high bill for its spin doctors,” Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies said.
“The public know and understand that staff are needed to communicate new rules and laws that come in from devolved government, but that does not mean ministers should build such an expensive team and charging it to the public, all a time when the cost-of-living is on the up.
“Then again, these are the same people that want to flood Cardiff Bay with more politicians, so they don’t have to work as hard.”
The FOI also revealed that in 2020 Wales’ Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) spent in excess of £8m on PR and staffing costs over four years, with the PCC for South Wales nearly doubling their staffing budget.
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Labour have once again failed in their governmental duty to obfuscate, hide and lie about actions of government and they still haven’t had the good graces to use public money for outright (far-right)propaganda or personal enrichment, the scumbags…. What’s wrong with lying about your policies and hiding everything behind a wall of jargon and untruths like wot the Westminster angels do?
I don’t believe that any “wing” of the Unionist mix behaves with Wales’ real interests at heart. The Tories, or the vast majority of their Welsh members, behave in the finest old colonial fashion obsessed with toeing or exceeding the line trotted out by the imperial masters in London. Labour on the other hand have distanced themselves from their original socialist mission and embraced all sorts of woolly issues and initiatives just to be seen at the vanguard of whatever is deemed fashionable by its “thought leaders”. The other minors are floating around aimlessly with even fewer fixed points of… Read more »
Yes £2 million is truly shocking, when compared to the £130 million spent by Boris on PR, £22 Billion being spent by his party on the renovation of buildings in Westminster. But of course that is not being spent in Cymru, so must not be criticised, and even ignored when spending is debated. Again this man only opens his mouth to talk down Cymru, with all that has gone on in London he still remains silent. PPE £37 billion. These 3 things alone £60 billion, oh and HS2 anybody.
Latest Cabinet Office wage costs are under £65M a year for the 9,450 of them.
There are so many now attached to 10 Downing Street that they are sending 500 jobs to Glasgow (not Wales).
Do NOT mention the £2,6M Johnson spent on a press room they no longer use as it is haunted by the giggling spectre of Allegra Stratton.
The UK regime will never treat Wales equally until the Welsh government threaten to leave the UK as the Scottish government are doing now.
When you have the leadership of Welsh Labour betraying Welsh interests to the UK regime this is unlikely to happen.
Mr Drakeford must now put to the UK Tory regime we want automony now or we want to leave the union. We can do this joint with Scotland.
Make sure they don not do a Putin on us !
Awww bless … the Tories in wales haven’t “slammed” anything for a few days now. I was beginning to wonder if ARTD had lost access to his Twitter account.
Whose that in the photo?
A. Andrew RT Davies
B. Benito Mussolini
C. Man waiting for Johnson to “go away”.
Is the smirking man in the background a Westminster Tory intern who has been permitted to have a play on the ARTD puppet?
it might be the lighting, but he does look a bit purple, almost gammonesque.
If only Wales had its own independent media informing the people exactly what our government does for Wales rather than being dependent on the London based media to give us their view of what our government does.
🙄😒 How much money do the UK Government spend on Tory spin. Pot. Kettle. Black. Enough said!
At last ARTD is doing what he does best and is paid for ! Holding the Welsh Gvt to account….on issues of policy and finance.
More of this and less time running after BJ and repeating Central Offices’ posh boys hand outs please..
ARTD is the natural leader of the opposition for Wales. Good on TV 📺 and first class on the door step ….but stick to the job.
A good Welsh Gvt needs a good Welsh Opposition.
While I’ve no doubt the Welsh gov have and do squander vast amounts of our money and perpetually need to be held to account (they aren’t). I wonder how it fares against this tory uk gov’ shameless misspending RT?… You’ve gone all quiet RT.
Another pathetic attempt by that dinosaur Andrew t Davies he should look at what his party are doing law breaking misleading parliament partygate PPE scandal he needs to put his own paries house in order before criticizing anyone else
The. Comments. I. Read. Semes. To. Got. Labour. Lot. Upon. Arems .or .