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Hertfordshire County Council defends £4,500 spending on Sky TV ads




Viewers are used to seeing adverts for big brands on their TVs, but in the past few weeks their commercial breaks have featured… Hertfordshire County Council (HCC).

The 30-second Sky TV advert highlights council services including fire and rescue, early years and social care.

It is part of the authority’s ‘We are Hertfordshire County Council’ campaign, designed to increase understanding of its services, which in Bishop’s Stortford account for around 75% of a household’s council tax bill each year.

According to HCC, the targeted TV ads ran between September 8 and October 9 and reached more than 19,000 Hertfordshire households with Sky TV subscriptions.

At a meeting of the Conservative-controlled council on Tuesday (Oct 15), Liberal Democrat Cllr Tim Williams put the spotlight on the “self-praising” advert – and questioned why, at a time when council staff were facing redundancy, the council had spent money in this way.

According to council officials, the “low-cost” campaign – which also includes posters in public buildings, billboards at bus stops and posts on social media channels – cost around £20,000. The targeted TV ad accounted for around £4,500 of that.

Following the meeting, Cllr Williams told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the ad was “unnecessary”, suggesting the money should be spent on front-line services.

He was alerted to it by a resident who had seen it flash up on Sky Sports. “When I heard, I was quite amazed, and the resident expressed shock at the council going down this route,” he said.

“A lot of residents do see the state of the highways, wait for buses all the time, and when they find out money’s been spent on advertising, I think they’ll see it as a misplaced priority.

“It’s a glossy, well-produced advert – but is it really needed? I like to think most people know what services are there and can find out by many other means. The TV advert is unnecessary.”

Cllr Williams said there were better ways the money could be spent – pointing, by way of example, to SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) services, highway infrastructure and bus services.

And he highlighted the council’s ongoing ‘organisational resourcing’ programme, which aims to reduce the number of council posts by around 400 by the end of the year.

“I think in this never-ending austerity period, when councils are strapped for cash, there are better ways to spend money, on front-line services,” he said.

“Tens of thousands is a lot of money. It can help in those areas. With an overall budget of £1.2 billion, it’s a lesser amount – but every penny counts.”

However, county council officials defended the approach.

They say the campaign responds to a survey that suggested residents were not fully aware of the services HCC offered. And they stress that as well as some paid-for activity, the campaign focuses on free channels.

“We developed our ‘We are Hertfordshire County Council’ public information campaign to improve understanding of the council’s work in response to findings from our 2023 Residents’ Survey which highlighted gaps in people’s knowledge of the services we provide, and recommendations of independent national research which shows the impact this can have on public trust,” said a spokesperson for the county council.

“This is a low-cost campaign which mainly uses free channels such as our own website, social media channels and community networks alongside some paid-for activity – including targeted advertising on Sky TV – to reach as many people in Hertfordshire as possible and highlight the services residents and their families access from their earliest moments through to the later stages of life. “

The council estimates that overall the campaign has reached more than 100,000 residents so far.



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