07.09.12
Government PR spending ‘to rise’
Government spending on PR looks set to rise next year, according to an analysis by the BBC and industry commentators.
Cabinet Office figures show the 2012-13 marketing budget for Government at £285m, while the COI spent £168m in its final year – though the Government says it is meaningless to compare the two figures, for a variety of reasons, including that not all marketing spend was done through the COI before it was wound up.
The overall total spent is still far below the Labour years, when spending on marketing reached half a billion pounds a year, a spokeswoman told the BBC.
Oliver Hickson, formerly of the COI, told BBC News: “My view on this is that spending is going up. The vast majority of central government marketing spend was through the COI. There was some other spend but I would suggest that was either internal press offices or local authorities, which will still carry on.”
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