Kent taxpayers are paying over £65,000 for a police produced magazine, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.
Kent Police Authority produces 13 individual magazines for each district once a year. The total cost of printing these magazines was £36,936.00, whilst the distribution cost came to £29,207.83, bringing the total cost to £66,143,83.
The figure for the Policing Kent Magazine emerged only weeks after Kent Police announced the need to make £50m worth of government-ordered cuts. The magazine is equivalent to roughly three yearly salaries of newly appointed Kent constables.
Strood resident, Andrew Day, said: “I'm generally not in favour of massaging public perceptions of a service. There is too much time and money spent on PR and communications in my opinion.”
Another resident, Nicky Bates, Rochester, said: “I have to be honest, my copy usually ends up in the recycling after a quick browse.”
However, the Chief Executive, Mark Gilmartin, defended the magazine saying: "As of 1 April 2006 a legal requirement was placed on all Police Authorities to produce local policing summaries… Kent Police Authority decided that in order to best reflect local policing areas we would produce 13 individual magazines to reflect each of the districts.”
He added: “We consider our publications to be value for money and the cost to each police council tax household is a small amount, within the region of 11p.”
The authority claims that it is the cheapest way to publish and deliver the information. However, one local printer who didn’t want to be named, said: “There are far cheaper options than printing a full colour glossy magazine, including the option to print some pages in black and white, which would reduce the cost at a time when cuts are needed.”
Kent Police Authority was unable to comment at the time of publishing.
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