Council smoke and mirrors in Election week

Pier publicity -a breach of regulations ?

Opposition parties are questioning why Sefton Council chose in the week of the elections to put out a press release stating they had appointed a firm to repair the Pier when they have neither found the money for the repair nor set a start date for refurbishment works and when the contractor was actually appointed on the 26th February (1). 

 The press release also featured prominently online on Sefton’s website.

“ We are quite used to seeing the Council’s Press Department being used as the propaganda arm of the Labour administration”, says Cllr John Pugh, Liberal Democrat Opposition leader on Sefton ," but during election periods the Council are prohibited from putting out politically sensitive information under Section 2 of the Local Government Act. 

No-one is going to pretend that the repair of the Pier was not a hot political topic during the elections and I am surprised that council officers co-operated with what looks like an attempt to persuade the electorate that there has been a significant development. The reality is that there still no money earmarked to fix the PIer and no-one has a clue when it will re-open.”

"The rules on council publicity during local elections are there to ensure that council tax payers' money is not used to support any political party and this looks like a breach of it to me which, I think should be referred to the Local Authority Ombudsman.

The Council will defend itself by claiming that they received a 'Final and Exploratory Works Report' from the appointed contractor on April 27th. 

It is hard though to see given the absence of funding, an agreed price or a start date that it justifies a massive press campaign in local election week, given there is good chance that the public and local media might have hopes unduly raised by such 'smoke and mirrors' stuff.

 Council publicity during election periods is supposed to be restricted to necessary and politically non-contentious stuff. Does anyone seriously think the issuing of a press release in election week trumpeting an appointment made effectively back in February falls under either category ?  "

The Local Authority Ombudsman investigates complaints of maladministration made against local Councils.

(1) "The initial award letter to AE Yates was sent out on the 26th February 2024” e mail from Phil Porter, Chief Executive to Cllr. Pugh