A city council has spent £3,000 on a consultation into the future of its newsletter after it suspended publication in the summer.

Birmingham City Council’s fortnightly ‘Forward’ newspaper has not been produced since the printing and distribution contract with regional press publisher Trinity Mirror expired in June.

A consultation was held into what should be done with the title in the future, at a cost of £3,000, which the city council’s communications director Debra Davies called “a worthwhile exercise” in a statement on the authority’s website.

We reported in August that Ms Davies was planning to recommend to the council’s cabinet that it permanently scrap the 400,000-edition paper, which was launched 15 years ago and costs local tax-payers £600,000 a year.

Despite the hiatus, Birmingham City Council has still produced a ‘Summer Times’ magazine featuring activities happening in the city between July and September and a special edition of ‘Forward’ highlighting Christmas festivities and other council news.

The authority is run by a Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition with reports suggesting certain Tory backbenchers are unhappy that money is being spent on consultations when council jobs are being axed in other departments.

Comments

Rob (25/11/2009 10:47:04)
400,000 circulation, £600k to produce – I reckon a decent ad sales team could easily make it cost neutral. That would make it acceptable to all the newspapers that complain about unfair competition and taxpayer funded council rags. Problem solved – except of course the real reason newspapers complain about council news papers is because they can no longer charge inflated prices for public notices.

Brummie girl (25/11/2009 12:55:52)
With the greatest of respect Rob, the city council’s Forward newspaper is a pile of rubbish, and as a taxpayer in the city I’d rather the council didn’t bother with it.
The journalist in me will always champion proper newspapers in the hope that unbiased reports will make their way to the public, instead of council claptrap!

Rob (25/11/2009 15:31:06)
As I said, if it’s paid for through ad revenue then your council tax won’t be used – so where’s the problem?