The Industry Implementation Group – including representatives from across the national, regional, periodical and Scottish press - met earlier this week to finalise the legal and contractual documentation that will establish the new press regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. Very significant progress has been made. A number of suggestions, both from publishers and from other parties, have been incorporated and the four key documents will shortly be ready for a final consultation across the newspaper and magazine industry. Work is also well under way on the financing arrangements for IPSO; and the Foundation Group under the Chairmanship of Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers is undertaking the task of selecting an independent Appointments Panel to appoint the first Board.
We hope that we will therefore be in a position to begin signing contracts that will establish IPSO during late September and October, with a view to implementation of the new regulatory system, fully compliant with the Leveson principles, in the early part of the new year.
