Mr Andy Lockhart,

By e-mail only: <[FOI #26864 email] >

Dear Mr Lockhart

Re: - Request for Information - PR and marketing expenditure - Reference Number:  CEX/72WMTN

Thank you for your request for information, which was received by Manchester City Council on 13 January 2010 and has been considered under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoIA).

I apologise for the delay in responding to your request.

You have asked the Council to supply you with the following information:

The central Communications team (as at the 28 June 2010, the Council's central Communications team employed 15 people as two of the posts shown on the attached structure chart are currently vacant).

The Press Office (as at the 28 June 2010, the Council's Press Office employed 15 people).

M-Four (as at the 28 June 2010, the Council's M-Four Print and Translation Department employed 60.5 permanent people with some vacancies and post held within the structure).

2. With regard to Part 2 of your FoIA Request, for the last two financial years from 31^st March 2008 -1^st April 2009 and 31^st March 2009 -1^st April 2010, Manchester City Council had not yet moved to a single centralised budget for PR and marketing held by the Directorate of Communications. Instead, individual Council Departments made their own arrangements in relation to their individual PR, communications, marketing and press office requirements. Unfortunately, for the last two financial years, individual Council Departments have not categorised their spending in relation to PR, communications, marketing and press office requirements under a separate “PR and marketing expenditure” budget. As a result, it is estimated that the statutory cost limit of £450 (which is calculated as being approximately 2.5 days of a council officer's time to determine whether the Council holds the information, locate, retrieve and extract the information) will be exceeded if the Council supplied the requested information to you.

If you require more information about the Council's Fees & Charges Policy, this may be downloaded from http://www.manchester.gov.uk/freedom/request/. If you do not have internet access and require a paper copy, please let me know.

The FoIA does not oblige us to comply with requests that exceed this amount and therefore I am not able to comply with that part of your request that asks for the Council's spend on PR and marketing (including salaries), for the last two financial years. Following the establishment by the Council of a central Communications Directorate however, all future Council spend on PR and marketing (including the salaries of the employees of the Communications Directorate) will be held centrally.

3. With regard to Part 3 of your FoIA Request, for the last two financial years the information that you have requested as to the amount that the “Council has spent on consultancy from private PR firms” was not recorded by the Council on a single central register. Instead, individual Council Departments will have made their own arrangements in relation to PR consultancy. As a result, it is estimated that the statutory cost limit of £450 (which is calculated as being approximately 2.5 days of a council officer's time to determine whether the Council holds the information, locate, retrieve and extract the information) will be exceeded if the Council supplied the requested information to you.

The FoIA does not oblige us to comply with requests that exceed this amount and therefore I am not able to comply with that part of your request that asks for the Council's spend on consultancy from private PR Firms for the last two financial years. Following the establishment by the Council of a central Communications Directorate however, all future Council spend on consultancy from private PR Firms will be recorded on a central register.

Please note if you are not satisfied with this response you may ask for an internal review.  If you wish to complain you should contact me in the first instance.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

Yours sincerely,

Sara Tomkins

Director of Communications

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