More is less: Feds boost information services amid complaints of tighter control

OTTAWA – The federal government has almost 4,000 communications staff on the public payroll, an increase of more than 15 per cent since the Conservatives came to power in 2006.

Data compiled by the Parliamentary Budget Office shows there were 3,865 “information services” employees on the payroll last year, up by 512 since Prime Minister Stephen Harper assumed office.

The sharpest increases came in the two highest paid job classifications, where numbers jumped 33 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively.

A spokesman for Treasury Board President Tony Clement says an information revolution is creating more data in a month than was created in centuries, and that the growth in the federal workforce is simply keeping pace.

The Harper government has come under fire for spending tens of millions of dollars on feel-good economic advertising and hundreds of thousands of dollars on media monitoring.

Meanwhile, federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is investigating a complaint that government communications rules are stifling public access to information on taxpayer-funded science.