Daily Research News Online no. 7588 - Brown's £1.4m OLR Contracts Under Fire

Brown's £1.4m OLR Contracts Under Fire

November 15 2007

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been accused of cronyism over contracts awarded to his 'personal pollster', Opinion Leader Research (OLR) founder Deborah Mattison. £1.4m of public money has been spent on citizens' juries conducted by OLR since June.

When Brown took over the leadership five months ago, Mattison resigned from her joint CEO post with OLR to work on a retainer for the Labour Party. However, she remained on the executive management team of OLR's parent company Chime Communications, in which she is reported to own a large number of shares.

OLR was awarded more than 90% of the contracts to run Brown's 'ask the people' juries and has earned £1,393,681 since Brown became PM - equivalent to around £10,000 of tax payers' cash each day. The firm has so far earned £868,930 from the Department of Health to conduct nine juries and another £524,751 from the Department for Children, Schools and Families to run five.

The Tory opposition has asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell for an investigation into how Mattison's firm won these contracts. Shadow Leader of the Commons Theresa May voiced her concerns by saying that the citizens' juries were simply 'glorified focus groups' wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers' money. She added: 'Brown has the nerve to award the contracts to his personal polling crony.'

OLR MD Paul Flatters said that any money the firm has been paid by the Government has been won through competitive tendering: 'OLR has carried out work for John Major's government and Tony Blair's government, so this is really nothing new.'

In September, environmental campaigner Greenpeace challenged the Government's nuclear power consultation process, claiming it is 'being fixed' by Brown's 'favourite market research company' OLR (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7349.htm ). OLR denies the claim.

Web site: www.opinionleader.co.uk.