Emergency meeting called over "unlawful" spending by West of England Mayor
Dan Norris used £10,000 of taxpayers money to create an advert deemed a personal political promotion
The West of England Metro Mayor has unlawfully spent £10,000 of taxpayers' money covering a double decker bus with three massive pictures of himself and his dog, a report reveals.
Former Labour MP Dan Norris, the elected mayor for the West of England Combined Authority, approved the spending for an advert to promote a free bus travel scheme around the region.
The double decker bus livery was never shown publicly after the combined authority's interim chief executive learned of the planned promotion and stopped it - fearing the livery was personally promoting the mayor.
In the aftermath, an internal report was commissioned to look at how the £10,000 spending was authorised, which has now been published.
The wrap featuring two pictures of the mayor and his dog, called Angel, on either side of the bus and a further image of Mr Norris on the rear of the vehicle, was designed to promote a scheme giving people free travel during the month of their birthday.
One image was three metres high.
The report stated the "imagery associated with the metro mayor should be merely 'incidental' to the main purpose of the spending, which is to promote the bus service improvement plan".
"Instead, the wrap appears to explicitly seek to affect public support of the metro mayor," the report noted.
"It seems that the promotion of the bus service improvement plan is incidental to the promotion of the metro mayor himself."
The report goes on to say that the advert appeared similar to political campaign buses seen in the past, which have the explicit aim of influencing voters.
It adds the images of the mayor with his dog "appear to be used as a personal brand or motif", which also appear on platforms used for political campaigning such as the votedan.uk website and the mayor's own X profile (formerly Twitter) @votedannorris.
"In light of these factors, it is difficult to come to any conclusion other than that the effect of the decision taken on or around April 24 2023 was, in reality, to incur expenditure of £10,000 of public funds not just to launch the birthday fares package initiative, but to promote or seek to affect public support for the metro mayor personally, and this is the conclusion which both the interim monitoring officer and the Section 73 officer have reached," the report says.
An internal investigation found that Mr Norris "issued a direct verbal instruction to procure the wrapping of the bus to an officer within the mayoral office".
When the interim chief executive learned of the plan, he ordered the bus not to be used and the launch event to be cancelled, but it still went ahead.
"The interim chief executive's direct and explicit instruction to stand down the May 23 2023 launch event was not followed," the report stated.
"The officer within the mayoral office that the reviewer spoke to on this point said that the view they took on the risks of proceeding with a launch event differed from the interim chief executive's view, and that the officer proceeded with an altered launch event on the instructions of the metro mayor.
"That officer did so without further discussion with the interim chief executive."
An extraordinary meeting of the West of England Combined Authority committee is being held on December 1 to discuss the contents of the report.
The committee will be asked whether it agrees with the findings of the report and also decide "what action, if any, it proposes to take in consequence of the report".
Committee members are the leaders of the South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset councils, Bristol's directly-elected mayor Marvin Rees and Mr Norris, although he will not be present when the report is discussed.
In a statement sent to Hits Radio responding to the report, Dan Norris said: "I was not interviewed by the individual undertaking the internal review over the summer and this autumn, nor was I afforded the opportunity to comment on the final report, which has just been made public.
"The report outlines important operational changes at the West of England Combined Authority that have already been put in place and others that need to be completed by the Spring.
"I welcome these actions."
However, Mr Norris appears to argue that the imagery should have been allowed.
"The Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity states: 'It is acceptable for local authorities to publicise the work done by individual members of the authority, and to present the views of those individuals on local issues.
"'This might be appropriate, for example, when one councillor has been the face of a particular campaign.'
"When Labour first introduced directly elected mayors, the whole point was to have a face that the public could identify as being responsible and accountable for the policies that were being promoted and introduced...
"I remain steadfast in my view that mayors are meant to be visible and this was stated in my election manifesto on which I won.
"I am determined to promote the policies and initiatives I care about to keep the West of England moving, continue to successfully grow bus passenger numbers and to tackle the severe cost of living crisis."
Mr Norris was elected as the mayor in 2021 representing the Labour Party having previously been an MP for Wansdyke between 1997 and 2010.