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| £700,000 budget for Isle of Man Government PR  A TOTAL of £713,467 is expected to be spent on press and public relations officials and consultants this current financial year, the House of Keys was told this week. Graham Cregeen (Malew and Santon) questioned whether this represented value for money and whether the Island was getting the message out about the 'good things going on' here.
Chief Minister Tony Brown explained that the nine government departments employed five full-time PR personnel and, in addition, there were two officers with other roles who spent a proportion of their time on media issues.
The chief secretary's office has two officers in its communications unit.
Mr Brown listed the external agencies, including Lansons Communications that provides public relations and public affairs consulting for the chief secretary's office, the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry through a joint contract that began in September 2008.
Weber Shandwick provided PR consulting to Isle of Man Finance until October last year and to the Department of Tourism and Leisure in the current year, Mr Brown said.
Red Point PR deals with advice to support the DTL in the operation of the TT races and marketing consultant Alistair Audsley assisted the chief secretary's office in supporting the Freedom to Flourish strategy.
Mr Brown said Isle of Man Advertising has provided advice to the Department of Transport and Department of Agriculture and Costain Media has provided advice to DLGE on specific projects like kerbside recycling.
Mr Brown insisted it was in the best interests of the Manx Government to employ external PR firms and Lansons, for example, had a large team of staff that could be deployed where appropriate.
Replying to a separate question from John Houghton (Douglas North), Mr Brown revealed that a total of £500,000 had been spent on the Isle of Man branding project to date.
He said: 'The exercise to develop a nation brand for the Isle of Man concluded in the summer of 2006 with the approval by Tynwald of its report Economic and Social Development through the enhancement of the National Identity of the Isle of Man.
'Costs for the research and development of the brand, as well as production of some supporting materials, totalled £500,000 which had been approved from the marketing initiative fund in June 2004.'
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