BIRMINGHAM City Council employs a total of 120 press officers and media specialists at a cost of £3.9 million a year.
But the woman in charge of communications at Britain’s largest local authority concedes the spin doctors often don’t do a very good job.
Debra Davis, the city’s £100,000-plus director of communications, said her unit had no idea whether what it does works or is value for money.
There was no proper planning of communications and no process for measuring the effectiveness of PR, Ms Davis admitted in a report published last October.
A planned shake-up of the communications unit will see 16 jobs disappear and save £650,000 a year.
The press office has already been slimmed down in anticipation of the cull, and there are 22 vacancies.
Those who are still employed can only look on in frustration as outside experts are hired to get Birmingham’s message across in the media.
Crisis management consultant Terry Brownbill, given a fixed-term contract to handle flack over the tragic death of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, impressed council bosses by promising to “play hard ball” with reporters who were too critical of social services.
At the beginning of last year, council leader Mike Whitby decided against giving his own press officers responsibility for organising coverage of a launch function for the new Library of Birmingham.
He agreed instead to pay two public relations agencies £134,597.
S&X Media and Boulton and Quinn were given the task of promoting the library designs and running a consultation exercise.
The city council insisted it did not have the specialist arts and culture marketing expertise in-house to undertake the work.
Redditch-based PR agency ASAP has a contract with the council to handle publicity for Birmingham’s annual trip to the MIPIM property fair in France.
And cabinet human resources member Alan Rudge, battling with the unions over a pay and grading review which resulted in about 5,000 council staff having their wages cut, has hired Downing Dunmore Public Relations to polish his image.
Ms Davis said: “We have to be way more cost effective and provide value for money.”
