Government threatens councillors with costs of “political” poster campaign and promises tightening of publicity code

The government has threatened to make councillors at the London Borough of Lambeth pay the costs of a “politically motivated” poster campaign in the borough and has promised to tighten up the code of practice governing local authority publicity.

The posters, which cost £600 to produce and are displayed on council-owned advertising hoardings, show a pair of scissors cutting into a blue-coloured pound sign, and include the slogan "The government has cut our money so we are forced to cut services. Tell us what matters to you."

Stephen Hammond MP, parliamentary private secretary to the Communities Minister, told the BBC: "The advert is a blatant misuse of public funds. The government is not telling nor forcing Lambeth to cut services - that is a decision the council are taking. The money wasted on this scare campaign could have been spent on protecting frontline services.

"The government thinks local councils should be looking to protect frontline services by cutting back office operations and seeking efficiency gains. This advert is purely political and Labour councillors shouldn't be wasting taxpayers' cash on bankrolling politically opportunistic campaigns."

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) code of practice says that council publicity “should not use public funds to mount publicity campaigns whose primary purpose is to persuade the public to hold a particular view on a question of policy". The BBC reported that the DCLG is now set to tighten up its code of practice “to avoid a repeat scenario”.

Speaking to the BBC, the leader of Lambeth Council, Steve Reed, denied that the content of the posters was inaccurate and said that the posters are intended to encourage residents to tell the council what their priorities are before the council makes the final decision on which services it will axe or reduce.

He said: "The posters state fact. Lambeth understands the government will be cutting our funding by almost £90m over the next four years, out of a total net budget of £310m.

"Because the government has front-loaded the savings, £37m has to saved in the first year alone, That means we are forced to make bigger cuts in frontline services than would be necessary if we had longer to manage the reduction in a more measured way."

"Government ministers are creating a smokescreen to cover up the scale of their cuts. They claim that cutting senior pay would resolve the problem, but even if we sacked all our senior managers it would not even save 1% of the amount we are being forced to cut."