Council celebrity culture lives on despite budget cuts!

Ricky Tomlinson

Despite the huge hike in council tax, despite the cut in front line services such as intermediate care homes being closed, despite the zero per cent pay rise imposed on council workers, and despite the hundreds of redundancies faced by council workers, Rochdale Borough Council is (in partnership with NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale), once again, paying a 'celebrity' to grace a low key local event with his expensive presence.

Live Life, billed as a 'public healthy living show' takes place in Heywood in March. Last year the council and its 'partners' were severely criticised for paying hundreds of pounds of tax payers money to celebrities.

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/20797/new-guest-for-live-life-as-bev-callard-takes-time-out

However, despite the current austerity, and the millions of pounds in savings the Council must identify and save, the council and public sector partners still consider it appropriate to waste tax payers money on celebrity culture.

This year the Council has chosen to “squander” tax payers’ money for its ‘public healthy living show' on that paragon of healthy living, the overweight, smoking actor, Ricky Tomlinson of the ‘Royle Family’!

Father Paul Daly of St Joseph’s, Heywood, a vocal critic of the Council's celebrity culture emailed the Lib Dem Council Leader, Councillor Irene Davidson, asking how much Mr Tomlinson is to be paid by the Council.

Councillor Davidson says she doesn't know - it is of course within the power of the Council leader to find out and answer but past form indicates this will not happen, Rochdale Council has habitually refused to divulge the amounts it keeps spending on celebrities even in the face of Freedom of Information requests, on the spurious grounds that the information is 'commercially sensitive'.

Father Daly agrees the information is 'sensitive', but to the Council who do not want the tax paying public knowing how their money is being wasted. He said: "As a member of the public I am concerned that RMBC continues to cut back on adult care, as seen in the closure of two out of the four residential rehabilitation facilities, yet is prepared yet again to squander tax payers' money on hiring celebrities to come to Heywood without invitation from the people of Heywood in order to justify the 'contacts list' of RMBC PR staff.

"This is meant to be RMBC, not a pension fund for celebrities!"

Rochdale Online’s position is that the public sector should be completely open and transparent about how tax payers money is being spent and hence we have submitted a Freedom of Information request, we fully expect the request to be refused, and the subsequent appeal against the decision we will submit to also be refused, at which point we shall take the case to the Information Commissioner.