£10k bus image of Mayor ‘unlawful’
The West of England Combined Authority ‘unlawfully’ spent £10,000 of taxpayers’ money by covering a bus with three massive pictures of Metro Mayor Dan Norris and his dog, a report has revealed.
An emergency meeting of the authority (Weca) due to take place tomorrow (Friday) will discuss what to do about what is described as ‘unlawful expenditure’ – as the images of the Metro Mayor that covered the bus were far too big.
The report said the bus was ‘wrapped’ in the giant pictures to promote the Birthday Buses scheme. The initiative gives people free bus travel in the West of England for the month in which their birthday falls.
But it has been revealed the authority’s chief executive withdrew a bus specially designed to promote the scheme after realising the images used amounted to a political ad promoting the Metro Mayor himself, and it never even hit the roads of Bristol or the West of England.
A report to the emergency meeting makes it clear the money spent on the scheme itself – which came from the Government – was perfectly legitimate. The only issue is that £10,000 of it was spent on promoting it using giant pictures of Mr Norris and his dog on three sides of a bus.
The meeting is being called formally to ‘report the unlawful expenditure of £10,000.’ The committee will be asked whether it agrees with the view of Weca’s interim monitoring officer that the expenditure was unlawful, and also they will have to decide ‘what action, if any, it proposes to take in consequence of the report.’
The members of the combined authority committee are the leaders of the South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset councils, Bristol’s directly-elected Mayor Marvin Rees and Mr Norris himself – but this time Mr Norris will not be allowed to vote because of the nature of the report.
The report explains what happened when the Metro Mayor launched the Birthday Buses scheme by ordering a bus to be wrapped with images of him and his dog.
“The decision giving rise to this report was a decision to issue a purchase order, to the value of £10,000, commencing a process whereby a third-party provider applied a cosmetic decal or livery (known as a ‘wrap’) to a doubledecker bus,” the report explains.
“That wrap featured a series of messages and images of the Metro Mayor and his dog. The wrap showed on one side of the bus a large image of the Metro Mayor and his dog alongside a message ‘Free Bus Travel In Your Birthday Month,’ and on the other side, the message ‘Be A Community Hero. Become A Bus Driver,’ along with a large image of the Metro Mayor and his dog. On the back of the bus, there is a further image of the Metro Mayor.
“The wrapped bus was intended to be used as part of the launch event for the Birthday Fares initiative, although it should be noted that there is evidence of an intention for the wrapped bus to enter and remain in service for at least 52 weeks,” the report’s author added.
The bus was wrapped but it was never seen in public, after Weca’s interim chief executive got wind of what was about to happen, saw the designs and pulled it straight away.
“The wrapped bus was not ultimately used in the launch event, nor at any time was it made visible in public on account of swift corrective action ordered by the interim chief executive immediately on him becoming aware of the issue.
“However, £10,000 of public funds were nevertheless unlawfully spent wrapping the bus,” the report added.
The report states that the issue is that the promotional bus was all about Mr Norris and his dog, rather than the Birthday Bus scheme itself.
It added: “Imagery associated with the Metro Mayor should be merely ‘incidental’ to the main purpose of the spending, which is to promote the BSIP [Bus Service Improvement Plan].
“Instead, the wrap appears to explicitly seek to affect public support of the Metro Mayor. It seems that the promotion of the BSIP is incidental to the promotion of the Metro Mayor himself.”