Eric Pickles imposes curbs on council PR spending

Communities ­secretary Eric ­Pickles says local authorities have been wasting cash on politicised advertising

This article titled “Eric Pickles imposes curbs on council PR spending” was written by Andrew Sparrow, political correspondent, for The Guardian on Friday 11th February 2011 18.54 UTC

The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, has been accused of imposing “draconian” restrictions on councils following the publication of a code of conduct banning them from publishing their own newspapers more than four times a year.

Pickles, who said the new code would bring “Town hall Pravda printing presses to a grinding halt”, has also ordered councillors not to spend money on lobbying and to refrain from making comments on “contentious areas of public policy”.

Publishing his code of recommended practice on local authority publicity for England, Pickles said that some councils had been “squandering public funds and pushing local newspapers out into the abyss” through their spending on publicity. He said the new rules would “make it crystal clear that any blatant vanity PR or politicised advertising by councils using public funds is a breach of the code”.

But his move was described by the Conservative-led Local Government Association as unnecessary, potentially disruptive, given councils’ need to communicate with residents, and totally contrary to the localist philosophy to which the government claims to be committed.

The new code will come into force in the spring, once it has been approved by parliament. As statutory guidance, councils have to have regard to it or risk the prospect of a referral to the auditor on the grounds of misuse of public money.

Councils have had to follow a publicity code since 1988 and the document was last amended in 2001. There are three key features in the new version.

• Councils can publish their own newpapers only four times a year. Pickles believes this will stop them providing commercial local newspapers with unfair competition. There will be an exception for parish councils, which will be allowed to publish newsletters monthly.

• Councils will not be allowed to hire lobbyists “for the purpose of the publication of any material designed to influence public officials, MPs, political parties or the government to take a particular view on any issue”. Using publicity stalls at party conferences for policy lobbying will also be banned.

• All council publicity must be “balanced and factually accurate”. They should avoid anything “likely to be perceived by readers as constituting a political statement, or being a commentary on contentious areas of public policy”. Pickles has been angered by councils like Lambeth, which has run a poster campaign blaming the government for spending cuts.

Lady Eaton, chair of the Local Government Association, said the code was “extremely disappointing” and that Pickles had ignored the concerns raised when the code was originally published in draft.

“If the Department for Communities and Local Government was truly committed to localism, it would not be introducing draconian rules dictating to councils how often they are allowed to share information with residents,” she said.

“Newsletters delivered to people’s homes have consistently proved to be the cheapest way for councils to directly communicate with residents and keep people informed about local services.”

“The communities and local government select committee found there was scant evidence of council publications competing unfairly with local newspapers. Most are distributed between four and six times a year and pose no threat to the local press, on whom the growth of the internet has had a far greater impact

“It is extraordinary that government ministers have chosen to ignore this and take such a heavy-handed approach. Not only are these rules completely unnecessary, but they have the potential to harm local democracy.”

Caroline Flint, the shadow communities secretary, said the new code could end up increasing costs at some local authorities because councils are duty-bound to publish statutory notices and could end up spending more on newspaper advertising.

“What is clear is that the Tory-led government has become addicted to sending out meddling diktats from Whitehall telling councils what they should and should not do,” she said.

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