Labour accuses Government of hiding rising bill for special advisers

Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson says Tories are 'spending millions of pounds a year on an army of Malcolm Tuckers'

There has been no financial information given out on whether the number of 'spads' has fallen under the new Government (Getty Images)

Labour has accused the government of hiding a rising bill for its special advisers.

Despite assurances from the Cabinet Office that official details on so-called “spads” would be regularly published, the last cache of information on numbers and salaries of advisers who fall outside the permanent civil service, were published at the end of last year.

A rewritten parliamentary answer earlier this month from the Cabinet Office minister, Matthew Hancock, effectively acknowledged the delay. It said details would be published “shortly.”

Last year at this time, the government announced that the cost of its special advisers had passed £8 million – a rise over more than £1m over a 12 month period.

At the beginning of this year there were just over 100 spads. During the last months of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, a total of 26 special advisers worked for David Cameron in Downing Street, with 20 working for the former LibDem leader, Nick Clegg.

Although the number of advisers necessary for the two-party coalition were expected fall following the Conservatives return to government as a majority single party, there has been no financial information given out so far on this matter.

Whitehall sources say details on spads could be released as part of a “dump” of information given out during parliament’s break for Christmas and the New Year.

The seasonal dump is widely regarded as an opportunity for the government to publish information that will be scrutinised less than is normally the case.

Tom Watson accused Government of 'hiding the costs of their spin doctors' (Getty Images)

Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, said the government were being less than honest about the spads on its books.

He said : “The government spends millions of pounds a year of taxpayers money on an army of Whitehall Malcolm Tuckers, so it’s about time they were open and honest about who they paid and how many of them there are instead of trying to hide details.”

Malcolm Tucker is the abrasive fictional character in the political series The Thick of it. Written by Armando Iannucci, Tucker is often said to be modeled on Tony Blair’s adviser and communications director, Alastair Campbell.

Mr Watson said Mr Hancock’s promise to release the spad information “shortly”, pointed to its inclusion in a wider dump of government data over the festive break.

He added : “This is a blatant attempt by ministers to hide the costs of their spin doctors over the Christmas break while no one is looking.”

Labour have called on the government to deliver a detailed breakdown of spads employed across each Whitehall department, and to include pay bands.

Last year the government said the scale of payments to spads reflected the “nature of coalition” and claimed the average pay of the advisers it had hired was less than the Labour government under Gordon Brown was paying out.

According to the last published details by the Cabinet Office, the total spad bill for 2013-14 was £8.4m. The total for the previous year was £7.2m.

During the coalition’s last year, six advisers were paid £100,000 or more. David Cameron’s director of communications, Craig Oliver, the equivalent post to Mr Campbell, was paid £140,000.

In the Coalition Agreement that was reached between Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg in 2010, it was agreed that the numbers of spads would be limited. However the bill continued to rise.