Ministers spending £289m on ‘spin’

MINISTERS are spending 50 times more on spin, propaganda and marketing than it costs to administer the Freedom of Information Act, it has been revealed.

Internal Whitehall papers also highlight how the Government has appointed an astonishing 3,650 communications staff, including armies of spin doctors.

The Act – which has exposed a string of scandals and wasteful public spending – is under threat from the Government, which claims it is ‘too costly’ to administer and has ordered a review.

But research shows it costs only £5.6million a year – compared with a total bill of £289million for the Government Communication Service (GCS).

This means ministers are spending 50 times more on promoting their own message than it costs for a piece of legislation designed to provide accountability.

The Mail has also obtained a ‘chilling’ Government document showing how officials plan to take advantage of ‘the media industry’s struggle to cope with a declining business model’ by churning out propaganda.

The memo, produced by the GCS, says Whitehall departments should ‘produce more “direct-to-consumer” creative content’ – which is code for writing and promoting their own news articles. A Whitehall whistle-blower said: ‘The language is chilling. It’s like something from East Germany where the state wants to control the message and everything the public reads.’

The figures were unearthed by Press Gazette, the journalism website which is campaigning to protect the 15-year-old law.

According to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures, between July 2014 and June 2015, the 21 UK departments of state dealt with 30,616 ‘nonroutine information requests’. The latest MoJ estimate on the cost of the average FOI response to a Government department was £184. This would give a total bill of £5.6million. By comparison, the GCS’s estimated spending in 2014-15 was £289million, according to its own strategy documents.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, pictured, said last month that the Act had a ‘chilling effect’ on Government decision-making.

Comment – Page 18