Last updated:

8th August 2023

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Spending on celebrity appearances

Request ID
17076
Date Received
Date Resolved
Details

See notes

Resolution
See notes
Notes
Date

I am writing to request a detailed breakdown of spending by your council on celebrity appearances at events, functions, and other engagements over the past five years. Specifically, I kindly request the following information:

1. The total amount spent each year on celebrity appearances, broken down by name of celebrity and fee paid, between 2018 and 2023.
Bonita Norris, 2019; Free (£0)
Simon Gale, 2021; Free (£0)
Jenny Quintana, 2021; Under £500 (funded by external grant)
Simon Brett, 2021; Under £500 (funded by external grant)
Ruquaya Izzidien, 2021; Under £500 (funded by external grant)
Temi Oh, 2021; Under £500
Elly Griffiths, 2021; Free (£0)
Anna MacPartlin, 2021; Free (£0)
Matthew Dennison, 2022; Free (£0)

Exact costs are considered Commercially Sensitive (Section 43) of the Act for those that were paid - having their appearance fees published would prove detrimental to them and their ability to negotiate prices with organisations in the future. We can confirm that those which did receive payment, this was under £500; so it does not appear on the Councils dataset of Supplier spend over £500 which is publicly available.

2. The nature of the event/reason each celebrity was engaged and paid.
All instances above was to provide a talk/event for library customers.

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