Whitehall gives Hackney Council final warning over ‘Town Hall Pravda’

Illustration: Ludovic Pujol

A final written warning from the government has landed on the council’s doormat as the Town Hall continues to flout regulations by publishing Hackney Today fortnightly.

The quasi-legal notice is likely to set alarm bells ringing in the council’s communications department, which has been censured by the government for “undermining local democracy”.

According to the Department for Communities and Local Government’s (DCLG) Publicity Code, councils are barred from publishing regular newsletters – so-called freesheets – more often than quarterly.

Marcus Jones, the minister in charge at the DCLG, said Hackney Council was one of a small minority of local authorities “that aren’t playing by the rules”.

His missive – referred to in waffly local authority jargon as a “minded to” direction notice – represented a last chance for the council to put its publishing house in order, he said.

And he warned Hackney’s executive politicians and officers that if they continued to ignore Parliament-approved rules around taxpayer-funded publicity, he would use his powers to compel them to do so.

Newham and Waltham Forest councils were also targeted in the DCLG’s latest crackdown on rogue local authority publishers. They were given 14 days from the date of the notice – 2 December – to make fresh representations to the secretary of state for culture, media and sport.

After this point, if communities secretary Sajid Javid deems it necessary, enforcement action will be taken and a court order could be issued.

Lynne Anderson, deputy chief executive of the News Media Association, said: “Council papers such as Hackney Today are damaging to independent local newspapers and local democracy because they compete unfairly for advertising and readers.

“The government recognised this some time ago and moved to clamp down on aggressive council papers by forcing local authorities to comply with the Publicity Code which prevents their publication. Despite this, some councils, such as Wirral and Hackney, are still publishing council papers which are in breach of these guidelines.”