As reported by the Newspaper Society: Speaking at the Local Government Association’s annual conference on Wednesday, the Communities Secretary said public notices should not be buried in the “obscurity” of a council website which he compared to “a lavatory without a light.”
Mr Pickles said he wanted to implement a series of pilots which would see local media publishers working with councils to find innovative new ways to advertise public notices on local media’s digital, print, mobile and social media platforms.
Mr Pickles said: “We are opening up council meetings to new rights, to film, tweet, blog. In the digital age we cannot cling to analogue interpretations of rules on public access. Statutory notices also need to change.
“I think there’s been a very sterile debate, and I hope you will forgive me, that the LGA arguing for their complete abolition and replacing them with nothing more than an obscure notice on a council’s website simply won’t do.
“It reminds me of a passage from Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. You will recall that Arthur Dent’s home is being demolished by the council. He’s told by the planning officers that the notice has been on the council’s display department for the next nine months.
“And the display department is located in the basement in a disused lavatory without a light at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet with a sign on the door saying ‘beware of the leopard.’
“Rather than this binary debate, I want councils to work with newspaper industry to look at new ways that we can improve statutory notice and better inform the public. Digital advertising, social media, location-specific mobile phone technology, pooling statutory notices so they’re not in nine-point font at the back of the newspaper but front up with web links in which to find out more.
Mr Pickles continued: “To take this forward, I want to bring councils and newspaper industry together to work out together, with some new pilots, to find some cases for innovation.
“Newspapers need to embrace new technology to survive but they should not face unfair competition from council newspapers, and the 21st century independent media offer councils the chance to reach out, inform, engage, an alternative to the depths of obscurity of a council’s website or for that matter a lavatory without a light.”
The NS is to set up a meeting with Mr Pickles to discuss how the pilots could be taken forward and how councils could engage with the local media industry on the project.
