Report into council-run papers is 'a waste of time', says Trinity Mirror chief

Sly Bailey has branded today's report by the Audit Commission into controversial council-run newspapers "a complete waste of time".

The chief executive of Trinity Mirror said the government should intervene in the matter rather than "pass the buck" to regulators without the remit to deal with it.

"The Audit Commission's involvement has been a complete waste of time as we knew it would be," Bailey said.

"It was obvious they were the wrong body to assess competition in the local media market or the impact of local activities on commercial entities.

"In some cases council newspapers are using taxpayers' money to compete directly with the independent free press. "This is damaging to local commercial publishers and is a real threat to local democracy. The abuse of taxpayers' money to peddle council propaganda dressed up as journalism is an outrage which must be stopped.

"The government should stop trying to pass the buck to bodies that cannot tackle the core issues and must take direct action and intervene immediately before it is too late for some local newspapers."

Bailey was speaking out after the Audit Commission, the independent watchdog that monitors council spending, found that local authorities were not wasting or misusing money on their publications.

The watchdog's chief executive, Steve Bundred, said few councils that publish newspapers were in a position to attract local advertising, one of the major complaints made by media companies.

Nor did he believe there were grounds to argue that councils were using public money to further a political agenda, as some newspaper editors in areas with rival council publications have alleged.

The Audit Commission's findings came as a blow to local newspaper groups, who had been hoping that they might trigger a regulatory process that could lead to constraints being placed on councils publishing freesheets.

Sion Simon, the minister for creative industries, told MPs earlier this month that once the Audit Commission had set out its findings, "the next step will be to present that information to the Office of Fair Trading and ask it, perhaps with Ofcom, to consider the question of competition and the potential impact on the paid-for newspaper market".

It is unclear whether today's Audit Commission findings give scope for such a referral.

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