Former Government advertising chief Granatt (left) leads the accusations against New Labour ads hiding behind ‘Government’ expenditure

The Government likes to tell us that its advertising through the Central Office of Information (COI) is not political. The Slogger says this isn’t reality. Figures and ad industry gurus back him up.

The Slogger worked in advertising for 35 years – and for Government departments via the COI on nine separate occasions. He reached the conclusion that some areas of spend MUST have a favourable political effect on the incumbent Government – especially in emotive areas like NHS care, state education and aged care.

Is there any evidence to support this past experience? Let’s look at the numbers. A Freedom of Information request has revealed the following:

Government spending on advertising and marketing rose by almost 40% to £253m in the past year.

The Department for Education increaseed its budget by 178% on the previous year.

The Department of Health doubled its spending to £66m.

Just fancy that.

WPP buys and plans media airtime for the Government. An insider there told us today, “There is always an increased Ministerial interest in awareness and ‘presence’ feedback for Government advertising in an election year. It’s obvious right now that this is the case.”

Mike Granatt, former head of the Government Information Service, said ministers are applying pressure to ensure there is more advertising before the election.

“One of the dangerous things that has happened over the years is that the boundaries as they are seen between what is proper and what is not proper have become more and more blurred. And it is quite clear that Whitehall – the mandarins, the civil servants, have become much less able to actually turn to the politicians and say ‘don’t do this, this is going to be wrong’.”

Another prominent agency CEO told The Slog today:

“Judging by the wall to wall government ads on the box picking off health, police and social care, I would hazard a guess that spend will reach £750m this year. Last week Heathcoat-Amery asked at PMQ’s a question about all this self promotion only to be brushed aside by the PM…talk about Ashcroft and his regional campaign! We are talking about an increased spend here of more that £200m in 2009 and probably £400m in 2010. It’s grotesque.”

The Guardian’s political editor, Patrick Wintour, recntly suggested that Labour’s own advertising strategy would be “making a virtue of necessity”, emphasising a low-budget populist campaign that “matches the austere times”, because the party “cannot match the millions raised by Cameron and Lord Ashcroft.”

Nice bit of propaganda there, Grauniad….but it won’t wash. Labour isn’t spending very much for two reasons: the Party’s broke, and with all that free advertising through the COI, who needs to spend their own money, eh? Let the taxpayers do it.

Foortnote: Labour’s election slogan was created by renowned advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Saatchi startegy chief Richard Huntingdon says “The new slogan also highlights that change is a process….It locks together a destination for Britain and it articulates that the future for Labour is for the many, compared to the Conservatives where the future will always be for the few”.

Saatchi & Saatchi also created the famous poster ‘Labour isn’t working’. No,it isn’t: it’s just working the system.