Does government ever listen to Commons select committees? Last month, MPs on the communities and local government select committee raised some pertinent points about the proposed code drawn up by the minister, Eric Pickles, designed, in part, to rid us of council-run newspapers.
Yet Pickles ignored the committee's report by putting his code forward on Friday - if not by stealth, then certainly without fanfare - for a parliamentary rubber stamp.
I am, of course, happy that the code will prohibit the publishing of papers such as East End Life, the weekly produced by east London's Tower Hamlets council that has made life intolerable for the commercial paper in the area, the East London Advertiser.
The code will certainly see off similar incursions into the territory of the newspaper publishing industry by local authorities. Not that there are many of them. And that's the point.
As I said to the committee during my evidence, the code is surely going to be too restrictive. A sledgehammer has been used to crack a nut.
By outlawing the publication by councils of any kind of communication, except on a quarterly basis, the government is in danger of preventing councils from carrying out their responsibility to keep their residents informed of local services.
There is not a shred of objective evidence to prove that more than, say, a dozen council publications across the country have been guilty of competing unfairly with commercial papers.
No proper survey to assess the impact of council-run papers has been carried out, as the select committee rightly reported.
Past attempts to hold such an inquiry have been bedevilled by buck-passing. The OFT once asked the Audit Commission to look into it - but the commission politely declined.
Now note the wording of the code's clause 28:
"Local authorities should not publish or incur expenditure in commissioning in hard copy or on any website, newsletters, newssheets or similar communications which seek to emulate commercial newspapers in style or content.
Where local authorities do commission or publish newsletters, newssheets or similar communications, they should not issue them more frequently than quarterly, apart from parish councils which should not issue them more frequently than monthly.
Such communications should not include material other than information for the public about the business, services and amenities of the council or other local service providers."
Of course, councils should not "emulate commercial newspapers." That's fine. Nor should they be able to compete for third-party advertising, which is prohibited, though somewhat obliquely, by a separate clause, no 13.
But where is the harm in councils sending out monthly news-letters on newsprint? There was a monthly one that I used to receive from Brighton & Hove city council, City News, that could not have been said to have offered a shred of competition to The Argus.
Seeing the way the wind was blowing in Pickles's Westminster department, City News is now being published quarterly, and online (see here).
Then we come to the much more contentious matter of statutory notices, such as planning and licensing applications. Councils spend a fortune inserting them into commercial papers to the benefit of publishers.
But is this spending beneficial to council taxpayers? Furthermore, given the decline in local and regional newspaper circulations, is it an effective method of informing residents?
I can see the situation from both sides. Newspaper publishers enjoy the revenue (and may depend on it given the fall-off in other classified advertising).
But councils squeezed for cash believe they can do it cheaper by other methods, through print and online. Eventually, I am sure these notices will be confined to online publication, but I realise we are a couple of years away from that. Again, the select committee called for an inquiry into the cost-effectiveness of publishing on the net.
I share Pickles's distaste for "town hall Pravdas". We want an independent press to hold local power to account. But we journalists are citizens too. We pay council tax. We don't want our councils wasting money.
What was required was a code that outlawed weekly publication by councils and outlawed the acceptance by councils of private-sector advertising.
But the compulsion on councils to place statutory notices in newspapers requires proper investigation. Is it relevant to the 21st century?
If we accept that councils should not be competing with newspapers, then - as quid pro quo - should we also accept that councils should not be subsidising newspapers through being compelled to place adverts in them?
Footnote: I asked the communities and local government department what penalties exist should a council fail to obey the code. Interestingly, there is no regime of penalties that can be imposed from Westminster.
It would be a case of auditors taking up complaints from local residents - presumambly about the costs involved - and then deciding how to punish the offending council.
Imagine the following scenario: a council refuses to place its statutory notices in a local paper, publishing them instead online. Will the auditor order the council leader to be fined for saving local residents money?
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