Audit Commission will not investigate council newspapers' impact on local media

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The Chartered Institute of Journalists (CIoJ) has criticised the Audit Commission's inquiry into council-run newspapers , because the report will not look at the effect of such titles on the local media.

The government ordered the commission to conduct the inquiry as part of recommendations made in its Digital Britain report published on June 16

But the commission has said it will not cover the impact of local authority titles on the local press, as the body lacks the appropriate expertise.

"The Commission is the champion of value for money in local public spending, and regulator of local public services. We plan to carry out research that examines the value achieved by council spending on communicating with the public and allows us to spread good practice and make recommendations about improving value for money in this area," said Steve Bundred, chairman of the Commission, in a release from the CIoJ.

"This research would include council newsletters and newspapers, income derived from these newspapers, and spending on recruitment advertising.

"The Commission's role and expertise do not lend themselves to examining the health of local newspapers or isolating the impacts of specific local authority practices on commercial bodies. This element of [the] Digital Britain invitation appears better suited to regulators with a specific competition remit."

General secretary of the CIoJ Dominic Cooper said that while Digital Britain encouraged an assessment of the value of these publications in relation to council tax payers' money - which he added he believed would prove to be 'exceptionally poor' - this is only part of what needs to be assessed by the commission's inquiry.

"These council newspapers and magazines are more cover-up than cover-all and rarely, if ever, report anything other than council propaganda. What effect these publications have on democracy is just as important as how much taxpayers' money they waste," Cooper said.

Earlier this week Evening Standard columnist Andrew Gilligan called such council-run papers 'the propaganda newspapers' and claimed that titles in London now employ more writing staff than the local independent press.

The migration of local authority notices and advertising from local newspapers to local authority titles has also been criticised by the industry and MPs .