Hackney Council ordered to cut back freesheet – as Town Hall plans £1 million for printing and distribution
Hackney Today is publishing in breach of the Publicity Code
Hackney Council has been ordered to stop publishing its taxpayer-funded newspaper “so frequently” or be taken to court by the government – on the eve of agreeing £1 million to fund the freesheet for the next four years.
The council has 14 days to agree to comply with the Publicity Code and cut Hackney Today back to quarterly publication or face court action, according to a notice sent by Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid.
It comes a day after the council’s Procurement Committee noted plans to award £1,382,000-worth of four-year contracts to pay for Hackney Today – £800,000 for printing costs and £582,000 for distribution – which are set to be approved in the coming weeks.
A Hackney Council spokesperson said: “We have received the notice from DCLG and we are carefully considering our options.”
When asked about the money, the council spokesperson said: “We are currently in a procurement process for both of these four year contracts – as per our previous statement, we are considering our options.”
Sajid Javid wrote: “An independent free press is vital for local democracy and it’s important that we support them in holding local leaders to account.
“Councils shouldn’t undermine local democracy by publishing their own newspapers more often than quarterly.”
He added: “While the majority of councils abide by the Publicity Code, Hackney and Waltham Forest have ignored repeated requests to stop publishing their council newspapers so frequently.
“In the interests of local democracy, I will therefore use my powers to require them to do so.”
The council has rejected previous government orders to cut publication to quarterly, saying Hackney Today is a relatively cheap and popular way to give information to residents.
Last month, Mayor Philip Glanville defended the council freesheet at his Mayor’s Question Time, saying: “Hackney Today is a rare thing, and it’s a controversial thing for some, but actually having a council newspaper that goes to every door and promotes events like this isn’t available to most councils.”
A recent London Assembly report on ‘The Fate of Local News’ concluded: “Local newspapers have, in some cases, been negatively affected by local authorities regularly publishing their own newsletters. While these newsletters have their place, they should not be a substitute for local news.”
The Citizen has revealed how Hackney Today might not comply with the legal requirements of a newspaper carrying statutory notices.
Good for Sajid Javid – and to the Hackney Citizen for publicising this, which isn’t likely to appear in the Council freesheet that we’re all unwillingly paying for. Cutting that down from 26 issues a year to four is a good first step to avoiding the self-serving waste of public funds by Hackney Council.
This must be the only paper whatever with no complaints page. for too long its been used to tell us how great things are.
We must ensure that Hackney Toady is wound up and that our money is spent instead advertising with the independent free and critical press who hold our councils to account by reporting a truly diverse range of views and issues. This is a prerequisite in a democracy.
The council will argue that we are free to buy whatever news we want – but this is misleading – they have loaded the dice in their own favour:
1) Council papers suck up public funds which the council and others ( Police, NHS, etc. ) are required to use publicizing their services, taking also most statutory notices ( planning etc.). Critical independent news papers ( such as Hackney Citizen ) are deliberately starved of public money, so It becomes almost impossible to compete.
2) Council propaganda sheets are not free – we pay for them and have no choice in this matter. It is not possible to state that you support transparency and accountability ( as many in public office do ) and at the same time defeat all avenues of legitimate public discussion/enquirey – as our council seeks to do via Hackney Toady. We are so lucky to have the Hackney Citizen here – without it we would know nothing of what’s really going on.
3) All newspapers must report issues fairly an accurately – so it is this fair and accurate reporting that the council wishes to defeat because they are opposed to it. This has been going on for some time now and contributes the decline in public involvement in the democratic process. For me this runs parallel to the over representation of media/PR types in politics today and especially here in Hackney. They are obsessed with “controlling the message”.
A simple challenge: Can Hackney Toady point to a single instance where it has campaigned on ( or even reported ) unacceptable local government services?
No time for Sajid Javid, he’s anathema to the public interest, but Hackney Today is a joke (and even more so if SJ can make a good case against them). HT is a publicity sheet for LBH administrators. There is no critical analysis of what happens in our borough and therefore offers no balanced commentary on council activity. Glanville needs to rethink this because the current terms of HT’s existence speaks of a condescension towards residents – we are paying to be told how good things are in our borough when so many of us are quite clearly have a different experience. Fluff pieces, (uncritically) profiling some of LBH’s worst decisions can in no way be considered journalism, to fund this from stretched budgets is verging on the deceitful.
Is there any way of unsubscribing from Hackney Today? I’d rather not waste my time walking from the letterbox to the bin every time this fantasists rag enters my home.