Hackney Liberal Democrats join row over cost of Town Hall ‘Pravda’

Photo: Hackney Citizen

The future of Hackney Today hangs in the balance following budget cuts, alterations to government policy and new information that has come to light about the cost-effectiveness of the council’s official freesheet.

Community secretary Eric Pickles  announced the end of council ‘newspapers’ in his new local government publicity guidelines issued on Friday 11 February.

However, it is not clear that this guidance is legally enforceable and several councils have said that they will continue to publish their freesheets.

Given the government’s cuts to council funding, the cost factor will perforce weigh heavily in any decision made about the future of Hackney Today, as new figures suggest that up to £230,000 could be saved by scrapping it.

The council has long argued that Hackney Today is the most cost-effective means of meeting the borough’s statutory obligations to publish notices and other information about what the council is doing. It says publication of statutory notices in a local paper such as the Hackney Gazette would cost over half a million pounds annually.

But the Gazette has reportedly said that it could publish statutory notices for £150,000 a year, which suggests the £543,894 figure of claimed by the council is wrong. This figure appears to be based on the full price charged by the newspaper, and does not take into consideration discounts commonly offered to regular purchasers of advertising space.

According to the council’s own figures, Hackney Today charged £219,558 to the council’s planning and transportation departments to include their statutory notices in 2009/10.

The discrepancy between the figures came to light following a Freedom of Information request by local members of the Liberal Democrat party and the party’s enquiries to the Hackney Gazette.

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Mayor to deny rumours that the council will challenge in the courts the government’s decision to keep council freesheets to four a year. They also suggest that the money saved by scrapping Hackney Today could be used to fund Educational Maintenance Allowances for less well-off students – allowances that the coalition government has recently abolished.

The Citizen asked the council if it might cut costs by scrapping non-council related content and thereby reduce pagination. A council spokesperson said: “The council has consistently chosen the most cost effective option for conveying statutory and civic information to residents and will be reviewing how this outcome can continue to be achieved in the light of the ministerial guidance on council publications.”