As reported by the Newspaper Society on 17 April: The Times reported this week that six local authorities, including Hackney, Tower Hamlets and the Royal Borough of Greenwich, had been warned by Ministers that they were potentially in breach of guidelines preventing authorities from using public funds to promote political causes and undermine legitimate newspapers.
It reported that Communities Secretary Eric Pickles was gearing up to use new legal powers in the Local Audit and Accountability Act to enforce the Publicity Code which aims to crack down on aggressive council papers.
Local newspapers have reported that some of the local authorities, such as Greenwich and Waltham Forest, plan to defy the guidance and carry on publishing despite the threat.
Earlier this month, the Government announced that Eric Pickles had appointed inspectors to look into allegations of governance failure, poor financial management and fraud at Tower Hamlets. A file was being passed on to the Metropolitan Police for consideration. The inspection was due to examine evidence of the local authority’s payment of grants, the transfer of property, spending decisions in relation to publicity, and other contractual processes going back to October 2010.
The NS has campaigned vigorously against council newspapers, websites and broadcast services which compete with local media for readers and advertising revenues. Communications and marketing director Lynne Anderson said it was important that action was taken once and for all“to stop this damaging unfair competition from taxpayer-funded council propaganda sheets which pass themselves off as independent local newspapers. It would never be tolerated nationally and it has been allowed to go on for far too long at a local level.
“The vast majority of people in the UK rely on genuine local newspapers to keep them informed about local council plans and decisions and to allow them to make their voice heard on important, issues which affect them. We hope local authorities will use the independent local media, which remains the best-read and most trusted source of local news and information, rather than undermining it with rival publications and websites aimed at controlling media coverage of council activities and diverting advertising – including public notices - away from local papers and their websites.”
The Government has had to abandon proposals to remove the obligation to publish various types of public notices in local newspapers; it has been demonstrated in every recent consultation that the public expect to see public notices in their local paper and not hidden from view on a council website. Independent research demonstrates that local newspapers and their websites remain the only truly effective, and cost-effective, way to ensure that statutory public notices and other forms of government advertising reach the attention of the maximum number of people in a relevant area and should therefore be the primary publication method.
