MY first task, after I joined a city council as a press officer 25 years ago, was to write a press release to alert the media that car parking charges were to go up. So I wrote a draft piece saying that parking charges were going up by an average of 10 per cent, or whatever it was, and the cost of an hour’s parking at the key car parks would go up by 5p to 55p.

Then I listed all the city’s colour-coded car parks with the old and new charges.

That draft then went for checking by various council bigwigs and came back to me in a barely recognisable form.

The officially approved release began, if my memory serves me right: “It’s all change at the city’s rainbow-coloured car parks…” neglecting to mention how much the charges were going up by.

And that is the sort of spin that can give council publicity a sniffy name.

But it’s certainly not all like that. Councils do need to communicate information to us all.

I’ve no time for propaganda but it’s vital that we all know what our councils are spending our taxes on and what they are planning to do. PR can be effective.

Surprising though it may seem (to me at least), not everyone reads the Echo, which acts as a watchdog checking on the town hall antics. And councils have a duty to account for their actions to everyone in their communities.

Both Dorset and Bournemouth councils spent more than £2 million in 2007-8 on publicity, which seems a heck of a lot.

But is it, when you consider, for example, that football stars like Berbatov and Robinho cost their clubs more than £30 million each?

Which would you rather… £2 million spent by a council in communicating with us? Or Robinho’s right foot?

(On second thoughts, don’t answer that.)