Friday evening - fire brigade cash shock

East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service has revealed it is paying a public relations agency more than £50,000 to deal with its media inquires.

Priory Partnership has been hired by the Eastbourne-based Fire Service instead of it having an internal public relations manager.

The firm has been hired to help the Fire Service's relationship with media organisations, provide media support to Fire Officers at incident scenes and help with campaigns such as fitting sprinklers in homes.

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Diana Williams, Assistant Chief Officer, of East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, said it had paid the Brighton-based firm 9,270 for work in part of the last financial year and was budgeting to pay the company 51,000 for this year's work. She said: "East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service has employed a local public relations firm Priory Partnership on a project evaluation basis for a period of time for 2005/06 and into 2006/07 to assess the benefits or otherwise of this arrangement, having previously employed a public relations manager within the organisation."