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Scottish Lib Dems round on quango over marketing spend
Marketing News |
20/08/2010
An education quango has come under fire from the Scottish Liberal Democrats for irresponsible marketing campaign spending.
The political party has revealed that Skills Development Scotland (SDS) spent almost a quarter of a million pounds more on awareness campaigns during 2009-10 than in the previous year, despite the impact of the recession.
A freedom of information request discovered that the quango upped its marketing budget to £1,484,000 from £1,241,000 the previous year.
SDS, which aims to inform young people of the range of training and employment opportunities available to them, claimed that additional spending was needed to help the country return to economic growth.
However, Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott, was entirely scathing of the approach taken by the organisation, which included paying celebrities to speak to young people and circulating branded goods.
The MSP for Shetland said the squeeze on public cash is beginning to bite and organisations across the public sector are being asked to rein in their budgets.
He said that at a time when nine in ten new Scottish teachers are unable to find a permanent job, and many other workers have taken a pay freeze, the quango is "blowing taxpayers' money on branded stress balls and advertising".
"It beggars belief that the skills quango is spending enormous sums of money on marketing gimmicks when trainees can't get apprenticeships, jobs are increasingly hard to find and some industries are warning of skills shortages."
Mr Scott warned that the Scottish Government needs to "get a grip of quango spending".
According to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, television remains the most effective medium for marketers seeking to engage with their target audience.
Research conducted by the organisation found that 98 per cent of people spend time watching TV in a normal day, consuming an average of 3.7 hours worth of programming.
Posted by John Lynes
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