A Lib Dem Parliamentary Question has unearthed the fact that the Government has spent nearly £5 million to advertise its ‘National Living Wage’ of £7.20 per hour. This figure includes £750k on posters, £250k on newspaper advertising, £350k on social media advertising, £1.7million on TV, £300k on radio plus over £500k on digital display advertising and pay per click.
This huge amount of publicity is in spite of the fact that from April employers will be required by law to pay the new rate to people aged 25 and over.
The money spent on promoting the scheme would pay the wages for 372 people over the next year, calculated at £7.20 per hour.
Tim Farron is not impressed.
Increasing the National Minimum Wage is a good thing, but pretending it is a Living Wage is farcical propaganda which undermines the campaign for a real Living Wage. Especially as the Government’s new rate doesn’t apply to young workers.
It is deeply concerning that the Government is spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to push the Conservative political agenda ahead of the local elections. This is a bare faced attempt to use Government funds to promote the fiction that the Conservatives have delivered a living wage.
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8 Comments
Not everyone listens to Any Questions on Radio 4. Not everyone knows their legal rights.
It makes sense to me that government proclaims the new wage law wide and clear. Some employers will try to duck the law, so employees need to be informed.
UK is a lovely place to live but some people live in slavery, others are ripped off by minimum wage rules because they don’t know how they (employees) fit in the employment world. Laws don’t always work.
This is ‘same old Tories’ I’m afraid.
In the 1980s they spent a fortune advertising the ‘Action for Jobs’ package which included re-start interviews and various training schemes. Overtly the aim was to publicise this to the unemployed, but the real aim was to neutralize the political effect of rising unemployment in an attempt to convince wavering voters that the Tory Government were doing something!
I recall in the 1980s the Thatcher Government advertising YTS opportunities on Channel 4 at 11.00pm; hardly likely to locate an audience of 16 year olds looking for training opportunities. But that of course was not the point. The campaign was designed not to promote training opportunities or inform the young and unemplyed. It was carefully designed to convince As and Bs that the Tories cared about youth unemployment.
Despite the many advertisements, phone calls and emails from me have yet to elicit what the accommodation allowance will be. Usually, it has been announced along with the minimum wage.
The whole ‘National Living Wage’ is a political ploy to neutralise the more subtle and generous ‘Living Wage’ calculations and campaign.
So, yes, the advertising is more to do with convincing the wider public, not directly involved, than the employers and employees, who are directly involved.
So it is political advertising rather than public information.
I see two possibilities here:
1. The tories want to make sure employees understand their rights.
2. As Tim farron says, the tories want to make the public believe they have delivered a living wage when they haven’t and make tax payers foot the bill for their propaganda campaign.
Number 2 seems by far the most likely to me. But I could be wrong.
This looks like propaganda and Tim has done well to draw attention to it. He should now go further and nail Ministers with a written question, the answers (or non answers) to which will prove his point.
1. Which audiences is the Government intending to address, with what messages, and via which media in each case?
2. What is the Government’s evidence of the need and justification for each of these communications to each of these audiences?
3. What % change is the Government hoping to bring about in knowledge and behaviour in each audience?
4. When will the Government be in a position to report the outcomes of this campaign to the public, and thus demonstrate that it was worthwhile, or simply a propaganda-driven waste of public funds?
Liberal Democrats champion our commitment to evidence based action by Government. Advertising campaigns should be based on evidence and be properly evaluated. We should lose no opportunity to hold Government to account, and demonstrate their shortcomings scientifically, in all fields.
On the website http://www.livingwage.gov.uk
It says “That’s an extra fifty pence per hour in your pocket.”
This is a government website. Does it have to follow national standards on advertising?
The statement above is wrong for a person working full time on the current NMW £6.70ph and the new NLW £7.20ph from 1 April.
Yes there is an extra 50p per hour, but nearly a quarter goes to George Osbourne in income tax and national insurance, so it is not all in the pocket of anyone.
(PA 10600L, 35 hours @£6.70 = £234.50 less £6.00 tax and £9.54 NI and PA 1100L, 35 hours @ £7.20 = £252.00 less £8.00 tax and £11.64 NI.)
I used the HMRC calculators with personal allowances correct for each year. Am I wrong?