Labour Council Spends £10,000 on “Vanity Project” Launch Event

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that Southwark Council spent at least £10,000 to launch its “Southwark 2030” strategy, equivalent to over £100 per person attending. 

This comes after a string of wasteful spending hit headlines, including £60,000 on a consultant’s report on free school meals that it later “buried” because the council didn’t agree with its “tone”. The council was also slammed for spending £2 million on external consultants and a further £29 million on agency staff. 

Southwark 2030 has previously been dismissed as a “vanity project” that puts forward self-evident truths that residents would like to live in a borough that is better, as opposed to one that is worse. 

The launch event was held in a room in the Tate modern, which has a maximum capacity of 100 people, with pictures from the event showing far fewer in attendance . The spend included £1,500 on food, and almost £4000 on promotional materials. This does not include the tens of thousands of pounds of council staff time spent on organising the event and broader Southwark 2030 work, with the council saying they do not hold that information.

Similarly, the council had launched its “land commission” in late 2023, which it had spent £40,000 on an external consultant to produce, and a further £1,200 on the launch event for that initiative. 

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Leader of the Opposition Cllr Victor Chamberlain said: 

“Yet again we’re seeing our Labour council squandering taxpayer’s cash on swanky show-off events that do nothing to improve the lives of Southwark’s residents. During a cost of living crisis, it’s frankly insulting to see so much money spent on self-promotional programmes. Southwark 2030 is all talk and no action. Fancy slogans won’t fix today’s mess – the Council can’t even get the basics right now! It’s exactly this sort of waste our alternative budget would sweep away so we can invest in the real priorities of residents; tackling the cost of living, making Southwark safer, and delivering better care”