Council newspapers: The council with its own newspaper which wants to stifle council debate on its own newspaper

I thought I’d done writing about council newspapers when communities secretary Eric Pickles introduced his new code of conduct which prohibited councils from publishing their own newspapers more than four times a year.

Of course, given that Mr Pickles’ rules on council newspapers are a code of conduct, rather than law, there was always a danger the most ardent supports of council newspapers would carry on regardless. And so it proved in Greenwich.

They produce Greenwich Time there, a weekly publication which is, according to the council, ‘written in a journalistic style, containing a degree of community news, certain lifestyle features and residents’ opinions.’ Residents opinions tend to stand a better chance of getting into print if the concur with the council’s view of the world – and the 853 blog is worth checking out for more on Greenwich Time

Greenwich Time newspaper

As for how journalistic it is, it certainly lacks news values. Take the August 16 edition, which covered the riots in London (a good 10 days after it happened). The intro on the front page was:

“Greenwich councillors have given a firm commitment to stand beside residents and businesses affected in last week’s rioting and looting in Woolwich and Charlton.”

As local councillors, should we expect any less? The previous week’s front page, which hit the streets while the looting was dying down, was dominated by the fact a visit by a children’s author to a library was a sell out. Hold the front page! If ever there was proof that councils make duff newspapers, this it it.

Of course, I’m not saying the local newspapers in the area are perfect, of course they’re not. But in council newspapers, with their guaranteed income from their own departments’ advertising, we don’t get to see the news of the community, we get to see the news the council wants the community to see.

The Hillsborough files: Actions speak louder than words

When the Information Commissioner ruled last month that the Cabinet Office should release documents it held on the Hillsborough disaster, I suspected that this wasn’t the end of the matter.

The Cabinet Office, after all, has form for not really embracing the spirit that we all have a right to know. And so it has proved, with the Cabinet Office now appealing the Information Commissioner’s decision.

The BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum blogs here about the current position. It was a BBC FOI request which was initially refused which triggered the Information Commissioner ruling.

Without wishing to sound dramatic, I do think that the Government’s real commitment to transparency and openness will be revealed by the outcome of this case.

Council newspapers: Political interference will always be suspected

One of the worst offenders on the council newspapers front is Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest parts of London. It spends more than £1.5million a year producing East End Life, recouping around £1.4million a year in advertising, although £625k of that comes from internal council advertising.

Published weekly – because councils have so much to communicate EVERY week – it runs to 52 pages, has a print run of 99,000 and is delivered to every home in the borough plus 475 drop-off points. It isn’t so much competing with the private sector newspapers in the area so much as appearing to try and run them out of town.

Council Newspapers: It’s more than just the money which makes them so wrong

The backbench communities and local government commitee of MPs which met before Christmas to discuss plans to restrict the publication of council newspapers last week returned its verdict: That the plans should be revisited.

The MPs, who heard evidence from those in favour of council newspapers - such as the mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe - and those against them, such as the Newspaper Society, said there wasn’t sufficent proof that council newspapers compete with normal newspapers.

The MPs argue that to tell councils how and when to publish newspapers is to cut across the government’s localism agenda – ie ensuring decisions are taken locally as often as possible. However, if ever there was proof that councils can’t always be trusted to take the right decision about things which benefit councillors, such as propaganda, then this is it.

The MPs also suggested that local government minister Eric Pickle’s plan to limit council publications to just four issues a year aren’t needed. The MPs seem to be living under the belief that there are only a handful of councils which are producing newspapers which operate as a rival to existing newspapers.

If you look at this purely in terms of frequency, then this is the case. There are around a dozen councils in the country which publish their newspapers at least fortnightly.

But the damage council newspapers can do to the local newspaper market doesn’t stop there. In 2009/10, the top-tier councils producing council newspapers at least once a year estimated they would offset the £19million combined cost of their publication with £9million of advertising, of which £3.97million would come from outside spending, be that private sector or other public sector bodies, such as primary care trusts.

In other words, £5million of council advertising is being diverted into publications run by the council.

The top 10 most read posts on this blog in 2010

I write about all sorts of stuff on this blog, but try to stay focussed on the stuff I think people would want to read about, so check the top posts stats quite a lot.

I’m always amazed that so many people read my blog, and thanks to everyone who takes the time to read my posts and comment on them.

With the clock ticking down to 2011, I thought it might be worth seeing which posts were the most-read in 2010. Happy New Year everybody.

Council newspapers: How the Mayor of Hackney proved why council newspapers need to be scrapped

Hackney Today front page: It looks like a newspaper...

Last week, the thorny issue of council newspapers returned to Westminster as the communities and local government select committee reviewed the new local government publicity rules, which have been proposed by new communities secretary Eric Pickles. (watch here)

At the heart of the new publicity code is a rule which forbids councils from publishing newspapers more than four times a year. Pickles has also said that external advertising won’t be permitted, and that only information - as opposed to propaganda masquerading as news stories – will be allowed in them.

The Mayor of Hackney, a chap called Jules Pipe, was among those from local government circles to be called before the committee to discuss the issue. As the elected mayor of an authority which produces a newspaper – Hackney Today - fortnightly, he is not surprisingly keen to hang on the right to publish a newspaper. The fact he is a former journalist perhaps exaggerates this.

Mayor Pipe said that the council needed to communicate with residents to let them know what was going on, and that the local paper – with a cited distribution of 8,000 by Pipe – doesn’t cover all the news that comes out of the town hall.

The stories he said had been overlooked by the local paper include the fact council tax had been frozen in Hackney and how he’d shifted £65million of resources from back to front office services in the last five years. In other words, the papers weren’t covering the positive stories he wanted to put out there. Perhaps that’s because the big black hole in the council’s finances causes more concern to some.

From bad to worse: Can the Local Government Association get anything right?

I blogged a while ago about a boast by the Local Government Association that it hadn’t indulged in doomsday warnings about the impact of Government cuts ahead of the comprehensive spending review.

Very commendable, you might think, had not every other lobbying organisation gone and done the exact opposite. The result was a bloodbath kicking for local government, with many in town halls up and down the country angry at how the councils were to suffer more severe cuts than other sectors of government.

I argued at the time that perhaps now was the time for councils to question what value they get from the collective £14million they spend on subscriptions to keep the LGA going, not to mention the many millions more on conferences the LGA puts on. After all, it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of town halls to effectively lobby their local MPs.

The council which tells people how to choose a good bottle of wine

One of the many allegations made by the Conservative Party in the run up to the general election was that Labour had allowed the state to get involved in too many aspects of life – both at central and local government level.

Maybe it’s ironic, then, that a flagship Tory council this week took a brave new step into a hitherto area of life uninfluenced by the public sector – how taxpayers choose their wine.

Really.

Tucked away in the what’s on section of Hammersmith and Fulham council’s fortnightly propaganda round-up, H&F News, is a three-page guide to picking the best wines for the summer, complete with ‘top tipples’ column written by someone from a firm which had also taken out advertising in the supplement.

Up until now, the only time I’d seen councils talking about alcohol was when they’d strayed into public health territory and talked about the dangers of booze. Of course, there’s a big difference between binge drinking and buying a bottle of plonk, as I’m sure the council would point out.

Did Tower Hamlets on the telly prove how futile council newspapers are?

Last week, Channel 4′s Undercover Boss programme featured a chap called Kevan Collins, the chief executive of Tower Hamlets Council. The basis of the show is quite simple: Boss goes ‘under cover’ with his employees to find out what life is really like on the shop floor, then makes some changes.

If you’re the boss of, say, Best Western hotels, it’s a pretty simple exercise, largely because most staff on the shop floor – in the hotels around the country – won’t know you from Adam.

In theory, it should be different for council chief executives. Especially council chief executives who continue to divert council funds into a weekly council propaganda newspaper called East End Life, as Collins does.

Council newspapers: One hyperlocal site’s response

No guesses for which side of the fence Sir Ray Tindle sits on when it comes to council newspapers. As he told Friday’s Local Heroes conference, they are a threat to democracy in this country.

No arguments here for that statement. Statistics presented by Kingston University senior lecturer James Morrison at the same conference suggested 95% of councils now have their own newspapers. The key here, though, is how often they are published and what the council sets out to do with them. A council like Chorley, in Lancashire, for example,  published “Chorley Smile” four times a year, prints 20,000 copies, distributes them at various points throughout the area and doesn’t accept any advertising.  The content seeks to inform people about the council, and it doesn’t make any attempt to hide the fact it is a council publication.

Compare that with Hammersmith and Fulham News, the fortnightly paper from Hammersmith and Fulham Council, which until recently wouldn’t even make reference to it being a council publication on the front page. Even now, the reference is about winning some sort of award. It diverts its public sector advertising into its newspaper, takes external advertising on top and even then still has to top up the budget to keep the paper in the black. Whether those figures also include the costs any other publisher would have to factor in – lighting, office accommodation, communication facilities etc – is not clear.