A FATHER-OF-TWO has revealed Buckinghamshire County Council spends almost £290,000 on its quarterly magazine.

Paul Slatter made a Freedom of Information request to find out how much it costs to produce the Buckinghamshire Times, which he feels is a waste of money. But despite finding out how much is spent producing and distributing it, he still thinks he has not been given the full cost.

Under his request, the council (BCC) revealed it spends £286,800 distributing and producing 956,000 copies of the magazine each year. Despite this he feels he has not been given a true figure because BCC did not say how much went on staff wages.

Mr Slatter, 47, said: "One of the reasons I put this Freedom of Information request in was basically to get an idea of what the costs were. I have not really got the true costs because it doesn't actually give the costs of the people working on the magazine.

"I was a little bit disappointed in the reply, it just gave me the bare minimum."

The sales rep gets seven council magazines put through his door in Conway Road, Taplow every year - four from BCC and three from South Bucks District Council. He thinks they should be combined into one publication.

Frank Downes, cabinet member for resources at BCC, said: "What we are doing is trying to increase our advertising and revenue and trying to offset some of the costs your man has identified and we seem to be doing quite well at that."

He added the magazine's last issue had produced £30,000 in revenue.