The BBC tell us that the Welsh Government spent more than £400,000 on four external public relations firms in the last financial year. This is despite the fact that the Government employs 25 full-time PR and communications staff itself.
The Government say that the expenditure was to “support communications to the Welsh public on a wide variety of government policies, including campaigns on issues such as anti-bullying”.
However, Peter Black, who is the Welsh Liberal Democrats’ finance spokesman, said: “With 25 in-house press officers and public relations staff, you’d hope that the Labour-Plaid government wouldn’t have to pay large amounts of money to external consultants.
“We’ve been warning this government for a while that they have to cut back on the amount of money they spend on external consultants and rely on in-house experience to save money.”
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