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Second council starts court bid against government over fortnightly newsletter

A second council is to take the government to court in a battle to keep its fortnightly newsletter.

HTFP reported earlier this month that Waltham Forest Council had confirmed its intention to take the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to judicial review over an order to comply with guidelines restricting local authorities to publishing newsletters no more than four times a year.

Now neighbouring Hackney Council has announced it will do likewise following a meeting of the authority’s cabinet.

According to the Hackney Citizen, the council has argued the direction was issued unlawfully, adding that cutting back publication would cost the council money and harm disadvantaged groups which could not access council information online.

Hackney Today

Hackney Mayor Philip Glanville said: “We believe that to restrict ourselves to quarterly publication would substantially damage our ability to communicate and engage with our residents, especially those who are hardest to reach, may face challenges around the digital divide, and who often have most need of our services.

“There is also a very clear financial argument for fortnightly publication, which whilst local government remains obliged to place most statutory notices in a newspaper, is a format that continues to save us money, and allows us to control our advertising costs, at a time when we are still under considerable financial pressure.”

He added: “In short, we believe that it is vital we maintain a regular print communications outlet for the benefit of all our residents, that doing that four times a year is woefully insufficient for our needs and for the reasons outlined in relation to statutory notices, other advertising and communication, cost more than Hackney Today.

“It is right that we should defend our right to engage with local people in the ways that work best for our communities. Our legal advice supports that, and I would ask cabinet to agree the recommendation that we challenge the Secretary of State’s direction, if he issues it, further to our new representations.”

Both councils have continued to publish their respective publications every two weeks in defiance of the order.

HTFP has approached MHCLG for further comment.

5 comments

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  • June 29, 2018 at 10:41 am
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    I lived on a council estate (as we used to call them) in Hackney for five years and it is most heartening to see from this newspaper that all the borough’s problems have been solved and harmony prevails. I recall that the Hackney Gazette (published twice a week when I was there) painted a rather different picture. Plus ca change.

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  • June 29, 2018 at 12:57 pm
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    These councils are trying it on. The central issue isn’t really the frequency – it’s about the way in which the ‘newsletters’ are presented. The worst examples ape newspaper style, and casual readers will not realise that they are not independent publications. Let’s see what happens. If I were the government, I would look at relaxing and re-defining the frequency argument, and beef up the requirements on design so that people can’t be misled into believing they are reading a newspaper.

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  • June 29, 2018 at 4:08 pm
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    Ensuring no one is fooled into believing a council publication isn’t a newspaper a two way street @Antiquarian, look at the vast number of local weeklies which happily grabbed the party political ad budgets at the last general election by allowing them to cover wrap their local rag, even letting their papers masthead go on it to further try to fool the public this was a news piece, not paid for electioneering.

    Publishers can’t have their cake and eat it,if they were happy to sell their papers integrity for a quick buck, they can’t complain when the matters reversed, if they live by the sword and all that

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  • June 29, 2018 at 6:14 pm
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    If the local paper in an area is no longer effective in reaching the populace due to ever decreasing copy sales,councils need to look at alternatives to get their messages across.
    The advertising rates for public notice and recruitment ads have always been excessively high because the publishers arrogantly believed they had the monopoly and could charge what they liked until the rules were relaxed,now all councils have had their budgets slashed and are being forced to cut costs and make savings it’s no surprise theyre looking elsewhere or via their own periodic publications to reach their communities
    I agree the frequency needs looking at but if the local paper isn’t delivering the goods and is in a spiral of decline ,you can’t blame them for doing their own thing.

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  • July 5, 2018 at 9:29 am
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    Ironic isn’t it? These council papers that our trade is so afraid of are usually written now by people who not so long ago were working for papers.

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