Government advertising 'wastes millions': Tories accused of seeking political advantage rather than value for taxpayers' money

THE GOVERNMENT was accused yesterday of wasting millions of pounds on ineffective or politically motivated advertising.

Matthew Taylor, the Liberal Democrats' spokesman on the Citizen's Charter, listed a string of government campaigns costing pounds 17m to which the public response has been so low that each reply has cost the taxpayer scores or even hundreds of pounds.

Recommendations five years ago from the National Audit Office that the effectiveness of such campaigns should be better monitored have still not been fully implemented, he said. He called for 'a full inquiry into the quality and accountability of these campaigns'. Examples Mr Taylor listed included the pounds 540,000 spent on the Charterline - a now discontinued phone line on the Citizen's Charter which received an average of just 25 calls a day at an average cost of pounds 68.

A pounds 6.2m campaign - Helping the Earth Begins at Home - aimed at promoting energy efficiency to reduce global warming produced just 12,080 telephone responses and 19,250 coupon replies - at an average cost of pounds 197.

A pounds 3m drive to recruit NHS staff produced just 2,939 replies - at a cost of pounds 1,007 each, while a pilot scheme in the Midlands in which people could be given a pounds 100 or pounds 200 Jobfinder's grant cost an extra pounds 49 for each person who took up the grant.

A pounds 2.7m Department of Health campaign to promote a Travelsafe code that explained the risks of contracting HIV abroad produced 11,453 coupon replies, Mr Taylor said, at a cost of pounds 234 each.

Information on the effectiveness or otherwise of government advertising campaigns had frequently to be wrung out of departments by repeated parliamentary questioning, Mr Taylor said, and even then ministers often refused to disclose market research on how well campaigns had worked. 'It should not take months of dredging through parliamentary questions to get this kind of information,' he said.

Such spectacular failures in the private sector would have led to the sacking of the advertising manager, or bankruptcy, Mr Taylor added. 'Frankly, the Government have had more of an eye to their political standing than to the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns.'

Following the critical NAO report, the Central Office of Information issued a guide to departments on better ways of running publicity campaigns. A spokeswoman for the COI, which handles advertising for some Whitehall departments, including environment, said Mr Taylor was using a 'fairly blunt' way of measuring responses. More sophisticated research by the COI focused on target audiences and awareness levels, but tended to be 'commercially in confidence', she said.

The COI was also on the defensive yesterday over the disclosure of a 30 per cent pay increase for its chief executive, Michael Devereau - to pounds 69,166 in 1993-94, according to its annual report.

The agency said the jump from pounds 53,000 was accounted for by a one-off productivity bonus covering the previous three years. The same report recorded that running costs had been cut by pounds 2.1m in real terms and unit costs by 6.9 per cent, the spokeswoman said.