Taxpayers' Alliance report on lobbying by the public sector

Posted by Gavin Devine at Tue, 04/08/2009 - 9:38am in

The Taxpayers' Alliance has today published a report into taxpayer-funded lobbying and political campaigning. You can see it online here.

Now I am not - as might be expected - going to make a long and passionate statement about how important it is in a democratic society that publicly funded bodies get the best possible communications advice (internally or externally), so that they are able to explain clearly to all of their stakeholders exactly how they have spent taxpayers' cash, though I strongly believe that to be the case. And I am not going to make 'clever' remarks about the accuracy or otherwise of their data.

Instead I am going to welcome the report. It is an extremely valuable contribution to the debate.

In this area, transparency is vital. It is absolutely right that public expenditure is held up to scrutiny. As a taxpayer I am glad that the Taxpayers' Alliance exists. And as a communications consultant I am in no doubt that the services we have delivered to our clients, within and outside the public realm, have been of the highest possible standard.

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