MPS advertising

 

I note you seek access to the following information:

 

• The latest Business Justification Paper for Media Planning and Media Buying Services submitted to the MPS Portfolio and Investment Board.

 

• The total MPS advertising budget for each of the past three financial years (2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23). 

 

• A list of MPS advertising campaigns run in each of the past three financial years (2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23). 

Please provide the campaign name, description, budget for the year in question, and (if retrievable within the cost limit) a breakdown of the budget by media channel (i.e. TV, radio, print, social media, online banner ads, paid search).

I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information.  Some data has been withheld as it is exempt from disclosure and therefore this response serves as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) by virtue of the following exemptions:

 

Section 21(1) - Information Accessible to Applicant by Other

 

 

Section 21(1) - Information Accessible to Applicant by Other Means - Section 21 of the Act provides public authorities with an exclusion from the duty to disclose information under Section 1(1)(b) of the Act, when the information requested is reasonably accessible to the applicant. 

 

I have disclosed the located information to you in the section of this notice titled ‘Disclosure’ below. A spreadsheet has also been provided with this notice that sets out the amount spent per campaign by financial year, on all staff vacancies/advertising plus police officer transferees. This is the spend booked through the Met’s external providers SSCL and Penna. Please note that the MPS does not hold a budget for each of the aforementioned campaigns. This information cannot accordingly be provided to you as it is not held by the MPS.

 

I have not, with the exception of police officer recruitment in financial years 2021/22 and 2022/23, provided a breakdown of the amount spent per media channel. The provision of this information would exceed the 18 hour research/cost limit of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). I have accordingly excluded this part of your request in accordance with your instructions.

 

 

- The latest Business Justification Paper for Media Planning and Media Buying Services submitted to the MPS Portfolio and Investment Board.”

 

The requested paper has been published on the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). I have provided a link to this information below.

 

MOPAC Website: - Procurement of Media Buying and Planning Services

 

 

The below table provides the MPS spend on external advertising campaigns, including research and evaluation, creative development and production, and paid media, in the last three financial years. This also includes the Met’s spend on all staff vacancies/advertising plus police officer transferees booked through the Met’s external providers SSCL and Penna.

 

Please note there is no set annual budget for MPS advertising campaigns. Spend on advertising campaigns differs on a yearly basis and comprises funding from different business groups, and external funding streams (for example Home Office funding) that are bid for annually. Hence the budget is subject to change. 

 

Please note that the MPS also runs low level paid ‘campaign’ activity in house on the MPS’s owned channels e.g. Facebook promoted posts. These are often ad hoc and with spends under £5K, and have not been included in these costs.

2020/21	2021/22	2022/23
£1,597,560	£4,589,164.38	£11,044,438.55
		(this figure excludes the PCSO research phase)

 

 

Please see the table below which provides MPS advertising campaigns, descriptions and budgets over the last three financial years. The ‘budget’ covers spend including research and evaluation, creative development and production, and paid media.

Campaign	Description	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23
Robbery	The 'Look Up Look Out' robbery campaign aims to encourage people to be more aware of their surroundings in robbery hotspot areas. The 'active' phase targets people while they are in a hotspot area at a risk time, and the 'priming' phase provides people with more information outside of these areas/times.	£225,406.12	£125,645.03	£159,623.96
School-age Robbery	The School-age robbery campaigns targets under 18s using a similar active and priming approach. The campaign targets school-children in high risk areas.	£2,687.70	£11,707.32	£205,973.19
Knife Crime	The 'Hard Calls Save Lives' campaign targets female relatives of those on the periphery of knife crime, encouraging them to provide information about knife crime, anonymously to independent charity Crimestoppers.	£138,211.87	£298,246.09	£900.00
VAWG	VAWG campaigns include promoting the Home Office's 'StreetSafe' tool, TfL's sexual harassment on public transport campaign	£0.00	£11,907.32	£37,726.00
Online Reporting	Campaign to encourage people to report non-emergency crimes online, rather than calling 999.	£99,725.68	£0.00	£3,862.32
Police officer recruitment	The police officer recruitment campaign aims to increase consideration and drive applications to recruit thousands of new MPS police officers. The uplift in spend over the last financial year reflects the increased focus on volume police recruitment.	£301,086.16	£2,767,117.81	£8,808,249.90
Police staff recruitment and police officer transferees	This is the spend per year on all staff vacancies/advertising plus police officer transferees. This is the spend booked through the Met’s external providers SSCL and Penna. (The enclosed spreadsheet provides a breakdown of these figures per advertising campaign)	£549,334	£1,106,351	£1,288,690 (excludes PCSO research phase)
	Totals	£1,316,451.53	‬£4,320,974.57	£10,505,025.37‬

The table below provides breakdowns by media channel spend for police officer recruitment in financial years 2021/22 and 2022/23.

Police Officer Recruitment	FY - 2021/22	FY- 2022/23
OOH	£634,222.83	£2,366,408.25
PRESS	£173,948.91	£1,009,627.80
DISPLAY	£961,543.84	£2,076,630.53
SOCIAL	£320,917.34	£569,948.16
VIDEO ON DEMAND	£237,500.00	£766,902.00
RADIO and DIGITAL AUDIO	£438,984.89	£778,209.97
TV		£718,614.58
CINEMA		£300,000.00
ONLINE VIDEO		£221,908.61