Eric Pickles Pledges Action on Unfair Council Competition

A small Newspaper Society delegation led by NS vice president Georgina Harvey, managing director of Trinity Mirror Regionals, and Archant chief executive Adrian Jeakings, will today meet Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, to discuss the local media industry’s concerns over competing council newspapers.

The meeting was arranged as a result of a request by the NS on 21 May following publication the Coalition policy document’s commitment, under the Communities and Local Government section, which stated: “We will impose tougher rules to stop unfair competition by local authority newspapers.”

Eric Pickles issued the following statement on 28 May: “I look forward to meeting the Newspaper Society. A vibrant local press is essential to help local democracy work effectively and to ensure that newly empowered councils are properly held to account. But more importantly than that, the local newspaper is one of the places that communities come together, as important as the local shop, village pub or public park.

“The new Government has pledged action to address public concern about unfair competition from excessively commercial council newspapers. Councils will rightly want to inform their citizens about council services, but I question whether they need to have the likes of TV listings and film reviews provided in weekly council newspapers.”

His comments echo those of Caroline Spelman, then Shadow Communities and Local Government Spokesperson, who was the guest at an NS lunch on 4 March. She was outspoken in her condemnation of ‘taxpayer-funded media’ and promised that a Conservative Government would tighten the Local Authority Publicity Code so that any council output was focused on council services and did not compete with the independent local media. She agreed that public notices, such as planning notices, must continue to appear in the independent free press.

In its submission in March last year to the government consultation on the Local Authority Publicity Code, the NS, on behalf of the UK regional and local newspaper industry, called for a ban on all those council publications which purport to offer ‘independent’ local news and compete with local media for readers and third party advertising.

The NS has always made it clear it has no complaint with the traditional type of council publication, published two or three times a year and offering useful information to local taxpayers about council services.

For further information please contact Lynne Anderson on 020 7632 7421 or e-mail lynne_anderson@newspapersoc.org.uk.