A minister today appeared to question a £670,000 PR bill run up by the Government’s vaccine taskforce by suggesting the work could have been done “in-house”.
Kate Bingham, the Government’s vaccine czar, has reportedly charged taxpayers for her own boutique team of public relations consultants.
However, Cabinet minister George Eustice suggested that PR should be delivered “in-house” and warned that Health Secretary Matt Hancock would be monitoring the work.
A former PR executive, Mr Eustice was the Conservative Party’s head of press under Michael Howard and David Cameron’s press secretary when he was leader of the opposition.
The Environment Secretary told Sky News: “I’m not involved in that. Obviously Matt Hancock in the Department for Health will be monitoring all of the work that they do.
“I don’t know whether it was strictly PR consultants or whether it was management consultants more generally.
“As you know, I used to work in that industry but also as press secretary to David Cameron. So generally I think these resources can come from in-house.”
Ms Bingham, who is married to Tory minister Jesse Norman, has used eight full-time consultants from London PR agency Admiral Associates to oversee her media strategy since June, according to The Sunday Times.
The paper reported that the consultants are said to be helping Ms Bingham prepare for media appearances, draft statements and oversee a vaccines podcast on Spotify.
She has already spent nearly £500,000 on the team, which is contracted until the end of the year, according to leaked documents.
It means each consultant is on the equivalent of £167,000 a year — more than the Prime Minister’s salary. The Department for Business, in which the taskforce sits, is said to already have about 100 communications staff, raising fears of the PR work being duplicated.
Mr Eustice said he did not know the specific circumstances of the contracts.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told LBC: “You cannot justify that sort of money being spent. If only it was the only example. There are lots of examples of lucrative contracts going without any due process.”
A government source said it was “clear” that Mr Eustice said he did not know the specifics and was “talking in generalities”.
