The mayor of Tower Hamlets has paid £50,000 from his own office’s budget for communications advice despite the authority spending £4m per year on communications, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.
Docklands and East London Advertiser report:
The Tory Party vice chairman has slammed Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman for a “vanity spend” on communications advisers after invoices from personal consultants were released.
Bob Neill rebuked the Independent mayor after details of payments of £500 per day to public relations experts were revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.
Former journalist Mark Seddon received £51,500 of public money in the last financial year as a communications adviser to Mr Rahman. But the outlay was not covered by the town hall’s £4.1million communications and publicity cash pot – instead coming from the budget for the mayor’s office and advisers.