Draft Code Of Recommended Practice Of Local Authority Publicity

Draft Code of recommended practice of local authority Publicity : Wednesday 23 March 2011

The Publicity Code provides guidance on the content, style, distribution and cost of local authority publicity. Local authorities are required by legislation to consider the Code in coming to any decision on publicity, which is defined as any communication, in whatever form, addressed to the public or a section of the public.

Government response to HC 666, session 2010-11 (ISBN 9780215556417)

The draft Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity is intended to give effect to the Coalition agreement commitment "to impose tougher rules to stop unfair competition by local authority newspapers", particularly by restricting the permitted number of issues to four a year. Local authorities, though, are required to account to local residents for how they take decisions and how they spend council tax revenues. They have a duty to communicate effectively enough with local residents that they have adequate awareness of how to access and use local services. The Committee found little hard evidence to support the view of the commercial newspaper industry that council publications are, to any significant extent, competing unfairly with independent newspapers at present. It believes that the provisions in the proposed Code relating to cost effectiveness, content and appearance are sufficient to deal with the excesses of certain council papers, which are in any case confined to only a very few examples. The report also considers the provision of the proposed Code which sets out to prevent local authorities from hiring 'lobbyists'. The issue of the use of public money on political lobbying is an important one which the Government should address, and the Committee recommends that the Government work with representative organisations for all tiers of local government, with the UK Public Affairs Council and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Local Public Services Group to develop a Code of Practice for local authorities on the use of lobbyists.

23rd report of Session 2010-11 : Drawing special attention to, draft Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity; Employment and Support Allowance (Limited Capability for Work and Limited Capability for Work-related Activity) (Amendment) Reg

This Draft Local Audit Bill, sets out the government's vision for the future of local audit. It has been designed to implement the government's commitment to disband the Audit Commission and re-focus audit on helping local people hold their councils and other local public bodies to account for local spending decisions. The aim of this new draft bill is to develop a locally focused audit regime, but one still retaining a high quality of audit of local government spending. The government views the current audit arrangements for local public bodies as inefficient and unnecessarily centralised, which has created a system of weak cost incentives and therefore become too focused on reporting to central government and not local people. The new audit framework will also allow bodies to appoint their own auditors from an open and competitive market. The Bill also gives new responsibilities to the Financial Reporting Council, which will act as the overall regulator for auditors; the National Audit Office, which will set the code of audit practice; and the professional audit bodies will also have a role in regulating and monitoring audits.