£35k per year job for promotion of 'Greater Gloucester' plan attacked

A NEW £35,000 a year job created to “convince the public” that plans for a Greater Gloucester are “best” has been blasted as a waste of taxpayers money.

- Carmelo GARCIA Local Democracy Reporter

The city council is currently looking for a communications officer, advertised as a 12-month contract, to help promote the idea of creating a “thriving Greater Gloucester” as part of the country-wide plans to reorganise local government.

Ministers announced late last year that local government would be reorganised across England. Gloucestershire is currently a two tier authority area meaning council services are split between the county and districts.

There are currently three local government reorganisation options being considered in the county. One option, preferred by Gloucestershire County Council and Tewkesbury Borough Council, is for the whole county to become a single unitary with a population of about 650,000.

The second option, put forward by five of the county's seven MPs, is to create two unitary councils, broadly divided between east and west. And then there is a third option being put forward by City Council leader Jeremy Hilton (LD, Kingsholm and Wotton) which looks at creating a unitary authority centred around Gloucester.

Now councillors at North Warehouse are “astonished” to find the 37 hour a week one year fixed term post has been created.

Conservative leader Stephanie Chambers (C, Quedgeley Fieldcourt) said her group was “absolutely shocked” to see the public relations post created. She believes hiring a communications officer, which would be paid between £32,115 and £35,235, to promote the unapproved “Liberal doughnut” model is an abuse of public funds and public trust.

“We were absolutely shocked to see a job advertised by Gloucester City Council to convince the public to support a controversial reorganisation plan that hasn’t even been approved by full council,” she said. “This isn’t communication, it is manipulation.