The spend covers advertising, public relations, and sponsorship. It was compiled by the opposition party which has pledged to cut COI spending by £250m a year should it form the next government to help fund a council tax freeze.
Information placed in the House of Commons library reveals that a Department of Transport advertising campaign costing £15.34m was the most expensive, according to a report in The Telegraph. Other expensive campaigns included army recruitment adverts costing £13.7m and an anti-smoking campaign costing £11.7m. Almost £1.5m was spent on a "slips, trips and falls" campaign to avoid accidents.
In total, the budget for the Central Office of Information increased to £391m - an increase of £54m in a single year.
Since Labour was elected in 1997, the cost of the department has more than doubled in real terms after inflation has been taken into account.
A COI spokesperson told Marketing:
"Government policies and initiatives affect everyone in the country, so it is vital that they are communicated effectively. In 2007/8, campaigns tackled important issues such as giving up smoking, army recruitment, road safety and climate change. These are of huge social benefit and help generate overall savings to the public purse.
"COI provides a strong centralised buying position for government advertising. In 2007/8, we secured a significant 47.7% reduction in media costs against recognised industry benchmarks.
"The Home Office crime reduction campaign cost £21m and saved the criminal justice system £590m. Similarly, HMRC's campaign to persuade taxpayers to file their tax returns online generated £7.9m in savings for the department in 2005. These are just two examples from the many successful government IPA Effectiveness Awards papers."
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