Newspaper Society: 'New Government policy is threat to local paper advertising'

The Newspaper Society has written to Cabinet Office Minister Tessa Jowell and Audit Commission chief executive Steve Bundred this week to highlight local media industry concerns over local government advertising and publishing practices.
These include a "Power of Information cross-departmental policy" aimed at abolishing statutory requirements requiring regional press publication of public notices and encouraging the transfer of public sector advertising away from the independent press and into local and central government-owned media and websites.
This is despite the recommendations in the Digital Britain white paper which included an invitation to the Audit Commission to undertake a specific inquiry into the practice of local authorities taking paid advertising to support council publications. The NS has called on the Cabinet Office to reconsider its policy in implementing the Power of Information Task Force recommendations in light of the OFT Review and Digital Britain Report.
“We are seriously concerned by the Government’s response to recommendation 11 of the Task Force Final Report, which flies in the face of the Digital Britain recommendations,” said the NS in its letter to Tessa Jowell. “It is crucial that it is not implemented.” The government’s response said that online publication should replace current notification arrangements.
“No impact assessment was carried out on the implications upon the local community and the regional and local press of such a radical and damaging government policy. It would be completely counter to the public interest, reducing public awareness in two ways – by the public notice failing to reach its interested audience and by generally undermining the regional and local press and independent news services by its adverse economic impact upon them.”
The NS says that the Cabinet Office has not consulted on “this radical and deeply damaging policy change” which would be “concealed behind piecemeal legislative changes across departments.”
Meanwhile, Stephen Carter has now formally written to the Audit Commission to set up the inquiry, noting “the adverse impact on local newspapers of the increasing role of local authorities in taking paid advertising to support local authority information sheets. Clearly, if such advertising grew to the extent that, coupled with other pressures on local commercial media, it rendered them unprofitable, that would be against the public interest.
“While local authority information sheets can serve a useful purpose for local residents and businesses, they will inevitably not be as rigorous in holding local institutions to account as independent local media.”
The Communications Minister’s letter said the Commission’s inquiry should take into account that the Department of Communities and Local Government is currently in the middle of a two-part consultation on revising the Local Authority Publicity Code.
The NS has highlighted three interrelated concerns to the Audit Commission and to the Cabinet Office:
■The increasing threat posed by local authority publications, websites and broadcast services purporting to offer ‘independent’ local news and competing with local media for readers and advertising revenues;
■The proposed removal of legislative and other obligations to place statutory notices in regional and local newspapers;
■The sharp decline in government advertising in local media despite universal acknowledgement by politicians of their importance to communities and the fact that they are better read and more trusted than other media.
In its letter to the Audit Commission, the NS pointed out that the industry had no complaint about “the traditional type of council publication, such as an A-Z of council services, published two or three times a year, offering useful information about council services.
“However, our members are deeply concerned about the growing threat posed by councils whose publications compete directly for audiences and for advertising with the very bodies that can hold them to account: independent local newspapers.”
The NS added:“We fear that any removal or relaxation of the statutory requirement to publish public notices such as planning notices in the independent local press will further encourage the development of competitive council newspapers and websites. Local broadband and online television services are also being developed by local authorities, using public funding and competing with independent media for third party advertising revenues. We question whether such platforms, funded by costly council PR operations, designed to set the news agenda and inevitably offering a biased perspective on local news, are an appropriate use of public funds.”