Wirral Council’s top bosses starred in a video which cost the taxpayer £5,700 to produce a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

Ironically the duo appear in the video explaining how they will save £40 million from the council’s annual budget, and explain how to fill in a questionnaire.

Hopefully a lot more thought was put into their budget proposals than the idea to make the costly video.

The Wirral Globe reports:

A video starring Wirral Council’s political leader and its chief executive explaining how to fill in a questionnaire over major budget cuts cost more than £5,700 to produce.

With Cllr Phil Davies and Graham Burgess preparing to release details of how they will slash a staggering £40m from the budget at next Thursday’s cabinet meeting, lavishing £5,770 of public cash for their video seems unlikely to receive universal approval.

Liverpool firm Mills Media was commissioned to shoot the film following a competitive procedure, which involved obtaining quotes from three local companies, to produce the video for the “What Really Matters” public consultation exercise.

You can read the full story here. 

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.