Treasury criticised for agreeing £500k spend on focus groups and polls

theguardian.com:

Treasury bosses have been criticised for authorising £500,000 of taxpayers’ money to be spent on focus groups and polls amid the cost of living crisis.

Deltapoll, an independent public opinion consultancy firm, was selected to carry out the work with an option to extend the contract for another year which would take the potential total cost to £1m.

Labour said it was “simply staggering” the department had given the green light to “little more than a taxpayer-funded vanity exercise”.

Procurement documents published by the government show that the contract states the researchers are expected to carry out twice-weekly focus groups and weekly online polling over a 12-month period, ending in February 2023.

They should also produce “in-depth reports” on their findings, including analysis, on a monthly basis.

A Treasury source insisted the research was policy-focused rather than seeking feedback on Rishi Sunak’s personal profile.

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said: “At a time when Rishi Sunak has told the British people he has no money to ease the cost of living crisis, and that cutting their energy bills would be ‘silly’, it is simply staggering that he has ordered half a million more of taxpayers’ money to be spent on private focus groups and opinion polls.

“The government apparently has half a million to spend on spin doctors while Jacob Rees-Mogg is threatening to axe thousands of civil service jobs in the name of cost-saving, throwing working people under the bus once again.

“At the start of the pandemic, the Treasury justified their spending on focus groups and polls as an emergency measure to test the impact of different policy options, but now this is little more than a taxpayer-funded vanity exercise for a chancellor