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JP switches production jobs from Sunderland to Sheffield

Jobs are set to go at a Johnston Press newspaper centre in Sunderland as a result of the company’s latest bid to centralise its production operations.

Sub-editing and design roles currently based at the Sunderland Echo offices in Pennywell are to be transferred to Sheffield, 125 miles away.

The move, announced to staff last Friday, is the latest in a series of changes by the company to centralise production in a small number of centres.

Already the company has scrapped its production hub in Horsham and moved its work to Peterborough while subbing roles at Preston are also being transferred to Sheffield.

As well as the Sunderland Echo, production staff at the Pennywell offices are also responsible for the Shields Gazette, Hartlepool Mail and the Tweedale Press group of weeklies.

It is understood that 13 jobs are at risk as a result of the proposal which was announced to staff by North East managing director Stuart Birkett.

He said: “Following a detailed review of the editorial sub-editing and design production it is proposed to transfer this activity from North-East Publishing Unit to Sheffield Editorial Hub.

“Prior to any implementation, we will consult extensively on an individual and collective basis under Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment Regulations 2006.

“During the consultation process we will explain the procedure, consider all alternatives, examine ways of mitigating the effects of this proposal, and address any other issues that may arise.

“We anticipate that this consultation process will be complete by 28 September 2012.”

The move from Horsham to Peterborough, which was completed last month, resulted in five editorial redundancies.

Nine members of the content design unit at the Lancashire Evening Post offices in Preston are affected by the proposal to move its work to Sheffield.

21 comments

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  • September 11, 2012 at 9:59 am
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    It’ll end when the last man standing is surrounded by the bloody corpses of talented journalists and the British provincial press, clutching his iPad full of adverts and press releases and, in his purblind madness, declares victory.

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  • September 11, 2012 at 10:11 am
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    Why is always journalists taking the hit, never the pen-pushers and bean-counters? Funny that!

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  • September 11, 2012 at 10:36 am
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    For people who end up losing their jobs I don’t know what the answer is. The job market is very poor indeed.

    I’m a former journo who used to work in London. Now back in north east getting the odd PR thing here and there, and doing my own magazine. It’s tough making a living.

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  • September 11, 2012 at 10:37 am
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    Has anyone told JP that location is irrelevant with new technology. Why move to sheffield ?

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  • September 11, 2012 at 11:26 am
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    Alan: Sadly, that’s the point. Why have three offices and all the costs involved when one will do?

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  • September 11, 2012 at 11:34 am
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    Re location: It seems JP chiefs believe that only by getting everyone under one roof, battery farm style, can the ‘integrity’ of those designs work.

    Not only is it palpably and demonstrably untrue and ridiculous, but a calculated insult to the experienced and skilled designers who could follow a template brief blindfolded and living on a desert island.

    They seem to think that some kind of fairy dust is sprinkled on journos the minute they become centralised.

    Yet ad reps, reporters etc can work remotely, it seems…

    Illogical and downright offensive.

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  • September 11, 2012 at 11:37 am
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    Moving to Sheffield is, I fear, a metaphor for targeted redundancy. What this story does not make completely clear is that North East Publishing includes Tweeddale Press in the Scottish Borders. Who would consider a move from God’s Country to Sheffield for the three month period during which JP will decide they don’t really need you anyway?

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  • September 11, 2012 at 12:53 pm
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    another detailed review review eh?

    was anyone involved in the review?

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  • September 11, 2012 at 1:02 pm
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    Phnurg hits the nail on the head: “Not only is it palpably and demonstrably untrue and ridiculous, but a calculated insult to the experienced and skilled designers who could follow a template brief blindfolded and living on a desert island.”

    But templates alone do not a newspaper make. News, or content as I believe the current buzzword has it, is organic.

    No two stories are the same, so why should every page look the same? Readers will quickly weary of the same format week in, week out…

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  • September 11, 2012 at 1:37 pm
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    It’s just another way of cutting costs, it has nothing to do with the laughable “integrity” of these Barcelona templates. Now my local weekly has been templated for a couple of months I thought I’d have another look at it. Awful. I’m not at all sure there are as many stories in it as there were at the start of the templating process. It looks cheap and nasty, despite the good quality stories.

    The idea is to ask people to work so far away that, of course, they can’t go and have to take redundancy. Then, six months down the line, the job will be moved back to the original area, and the templates put out by newsdesk.

    As for location, of course it doesn’t matter at all where you work, editors have always had the option, under Atex, of looking at pages from home and working on them in the same way they can in the office. There would be nothing to stop features content editors, for example. working on pages from home if they have the same sort of design shapes every week.

    What I think is the worst part of working for JP at the moment is that day after day, week after week, editorial staff have the stress and uncertainty of not knowing if they have a job or not, or where that job will be located.

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  • September 11, 2012 at 2:46 pm
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    @phnurg

    Be careful what you wish for. If JP did take the next logical step of getting rid of offices altogether I suspect they would then decide that those people working from home are effectively freelance contributors competing for piece-rate work against English graduates in Mumbai without a guaranteed regular income, holiday or sick pay. I suspect that is the long-term plan for regional content producers (what we used to call reporters) submitting work to a centralised production hub 200 miles away. And if some firm’s press release is cheaper and free forget about being able to pay your rent this week. All JP is interested in is ad revenue. To the suits in Edinburgh news is just an irritatingly expensive way of filling in the gaps between the ads.

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  • September 11, 2012 at 2:56 pm
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    As someone who worked in the production team at the Sunderland Echo a few years ago I would like to add my outrage to the latest bizarre decision in the newspaper industry.
    What next? Move all the staff offshore?
    My thoughts are with everyone still left in Sunderland.

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  • September 11, 2012 at 3:10 pm
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    Has anyone ever seen a copy of one of these ‘detailed reviews’?

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  • September 11, 2012 at 3:49 pm
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    To any bean-counters who may have accidentally stumbled across this page, this is how the economics of local newspapers works:

    1. Pages are filled with stories and other content OF INTEREST TO local people, written and displayed to best effect by skilled people who understand those local issues.
    2. Local people buy the papers to read those local stories.
    3. Advertisers buy space alongside the stories to display their products and services to the local people.

    Take away 1. and 2. disappears on its own. Once 2. is lost, there is no reason for 3. to happen and the business collapses.

    Nearly everyone reading this knows it is so, so why are so many businesses being ruined for short-term gain?

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  • September 11, 2012 at 4:45 pm
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    The really sad thing is as someone mentioned above – EVERY journo and sub could be made freelance. The spirit and heart of newspapers is long-since dead and the therefore the camaraderie. So it’s not a problem to farm out a few pages a day to people sat at home. It all makes sense. No holiday pay, no sickness and lower rates of pay because there will always be people out there wanting to do the job. You could fill a weekly paper nowadays and with new technology and to modern, slack standards in a day. One person could do it. It’s utter bobbins but true

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  • September 11, 2012 at 5:19 pm
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    In response to Casper…..unfortunately JP are where they are…..

    1. Net debt £361.7m*
    2. Profit before tax £13.6m*
    3. Market capitalisation of £33.3m~

    *Ref interim report 2012
    ~ Close 11th September 2012

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  • September 14, 2012 at 12:36 pm
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    How did JP manage to borrow all those millions, just to make thousands redundant?
    Good titles have gone, good staff have gone, good will has gone, sensible decision making has gone.

    If JP hadn’t taken over all those titles, changes would have been inevitable, but nothing like the JP ones, they have taken penny pinching to the limit. Stop putting underwrap on bundles is a prime example, it doesn’t seem to matter that some newspapers are damaged as a result, someone somewhere has saved a few pence.

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  • September 21, 2012 at 12:00 pm
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    And it gets worse. I hear the print shop is closing too, so it is being printed in Sheffield. Print an evening paper 125 miles away?

    I guess this means it will now become a morning paper cos you can’t have a 10am deadline and expect the papers to arrive for noon. Look at the poor road network into the north east, one accident closes trunk roads and that’s it, no papers.

    It’s time for smaller publishers to punish JP for this disgraceful decision. Yes, sales may be lower, but if you take the ‘local’ out of a local paper and reduce quality, readers ditch it quickly. JP directors make Murdoch look like a saint.

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  • October 15, 2012 at 12:41 pm
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    As a former employee I can’t believe this… actually, who am I kidding? I absolutely can.
    Just what is the point of doing this? Moving the subs’ desk away from the north east? Local knowledge – gone. Local talent – gone. And just that buzz of a breaking story and everyone working together – gone.
    I’ve worked on a national news online centralised subbing desk and can see the reason for this, in fact it works very well, but that’s a national outlet not the local news industry. When you’ve still got a paper format for the foreseeable future it just doesn’t make sense.
    Sorry everyone, my thoughts are with you. You must definitely still have journalism in your blood as that’s probably the only reason why you’re all staying. Keep up the good work and high spirits.

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