The average local authority now spends almost £1m on publicity, according to a tax payers' campaign group.

Research by the TaxPayers’ Alliance claimed council spending on media and promotional work is now double the amount spent in 1997.

It calculated the average spend across 450 councils is now £985,000 with Birmingham City Council spending more than £10m. A further eight authorities have PR and marketing budgets in excess of £5m.

The group issued the figures so that taxpayers could ‘decide for themselves whether their local authority is spending their money wisely’.

The alliance also claimed that if recruitment advertising is taken into account, the figures would be higher.

However, they praised several councils for reducing their publicity spending. Hammersmith and Fulham LBC was singled out because it spent £669,000 on publicity in 2006-07, down 11% from the £751,000 spent in 1996-97.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It’s important for council taxpayers to see just how their hard-earned money is being spent by town halls. 

‘With council tax doubling in the past decade, it’s extremely disappointing that councils have chosen to double their publicity budgets over the same period.  With the internet cutting the cost of communication, it shouldn’t be difficult for local authorities to find savings in this area and bring council tax down.’

The LGA slammed the study, arguing people would be denied access to vital services without council communications.

A spokesman said: ‘Councils have a duty, not only to provide value for money to local people, but also to tell people what services they get for their tax. People would be furious if they had no idea of what services their cash was paying for and how they could get to use them.

‘Councils provide more than 800 different services from archaeology to zoology and the belief that they simply pick up the bins is just nonsense.’

The full report, which includes details for every council in the UK, as well as all the sources and methodology points, can be downloaded from http://tpa.typepad.com/home/files/council_spending_uncovered_1_publicity.pdf.