9:40am Tuesday 9th February 2010
By Oliver Evans
THE costs of a council magazine delivered to homes went up four-fold in five years, figures show.
Wycombe District Council’s Community Voice cost the authority £53,262 in 2008/09 – up from £12,796 in 2004/05.
The authority says more issues and pages and changes to distribution and print costs have pushed up prices, revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.
It comes as the authority and four others move to merge their magazines – which cost a total £300,000 – in a bid to save cash. The council said it does not know yet how much will be saved.
The topic of council magazines has ignited a national debate with critics accusing them of peddling ‘propaganda’ about council activities.
Buckinghamshire County Council was widely ridiculed for a feature called ‘True Grit’ in its Buckinghamshire Times publication on how it is ‘ready for winter’ (see links, bottom of story).
Weeks after its publication the county was plunged into the worst snow for 30 years with many angry at ungritted roads.
Yet deputy leader Councillor Bill Chapple said residents like the publication more than local newspapers (see link, bottom of story).
Nationwide concerns about the magazines led to a probe by spending watchdog Audit Commission which found the cash spent was ‘not unreasonable’.
Councils say they are obliged to communicate with residents by the Government.
What do you think of the magazine? Leave your comments below.
Wycombe’s 32-page magazine was launched in 2005 and is distributed to 63,500 homes.
Advertising offsets some of the costs, the figures show, but the contributions declined from about 21 per cent in 2004/05 to 16 per cent in 2008/09.
Taxpayer funded organisations including the county council and NHS Buckinghamshire have placed ads.
Council spokesman Catherine Spalton said: “The costs for Community Voice have increased due to a number of factors, including the number of issues in a given year.”
This included more pages to meet demand from other authorities, a change in distributor had and ‘the increased cost of design and print services’.
An officer on £31,776 to £37,401 spends eight hours a week putting together the magazine. The authority would not give exact salaries as it is ‘not council policy’.
The joint magazine – comprising the county council and Bucks’s four district councils – will launch in the summer. Each council will have a section.
Miss Spalton said: “We are committed to working more closely with the other councils and to continue to make cost savings.”
She said: “As we are still in the tendering process for the production of this magazine, we are unable to provide more specific information about the production costs or potential cost savings.”
The figures were uncovered by a member of the public and placed on the What Do They Know? website, which collates FOI requests (see links, below).
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