The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has had a major blowout in its public relations budget, despite the fact the organisation is meant to be winding down, says Labour's Canterbury Spokesperson Megan Woods.

'CERA is meant to be closing up shop soon, but in the last financial year they had a 37 per cent increase in the amount spent on public relation campaigns.

'CERA now employs a whopping 19 communications staff – that's compared to just 11 by the Ministry of Education and 7 by the Ministry of Health. That's a huge amount of taxpayer money spent on spin doctors by an organisation that is meant to be in its dying days.

'On top of its big internal spend, CERA also spent over $1.6 million on external PR and media agencies.

'With major anchor projects years behind schedule, Cantabrians will be wondering why the Government is spending so much on spin and delivering so few results,” says Megan Woods.

Source: Office of Megan Woods.