Matt Simms

Figures have revealed Rochdale council’s glossy PR magazine, Local Matters, costs a minimum of £116,778 to produce every year – that works out around £20,000 per issue.

I recently obtained these figures through a Freedom of Information request to Rochdale Council.

The magazine allows the council to get their uncensored message across to the people of the borough. Arguably this is a great way for the council to communicate with residents, as it allows them to say exactly what they want to say. They have free range to fill the mag with unedited stories and information that is totally on message.

But do the borough’s residents really need the council spending thousands of pounds on this magazine? Surely there are better, more imaginative ways in which the council can get its message across, and in a much cheaper way.

And with a squeeze predicted on local government finances after the next election, this kind of spending will surely be reigned in. As you read this Rochdale council is being forced into some tough choices on cuts, so perhaps it’s time for the council to get creative when it talks to the people. More effort could be used to get the council’s stories in the local media, and of course social media could be better exploited. Although they have made a tentative step into the world of Twitter, there have been a few irregular Tweets, more could be done to communicate through social media at a knock down price.

And back we go to the realities of money. The figure I have quoted is just a minimum cost of Local Matters, the final cost of will be much higher.

The total cost I have been given doesn’t include how much it costs the council to deliver the magazines to every home in the Borough of Rochdale - that’s of course Rochdale, but also Heywood, Milnrow, Littleborough, Middleton and all the areas in between.

The council has for some reason exempted this information under Section 43, which basically protects business interests.

Don’t worry readers I immediately lodged an appeal to the council and I am eagerly waiting for their response.

They have slapped a section 43 on this piece of information and they say the reason is: “Rochdale Council believes that to disclose the information would prejudice the council’s ability to get good value for money when dealing with commercial companies.”

Now hold on Rochdale Council, the magazine is printed by a private company so why can I have this information and not information on the delivery cost.

It is not going to be cheap to hand deliver a thick, glossy magazine to tens of thousands of homes and this is likely to push the cost of the magazine through the roof.

The public have a right to know what the council is spending their money on and the council has no right to block this information. Local Matters is all about informing resident’s of the wonderful borough of Rochdale, so come on 

Full Breakdown of Figures
* 92,000 copies are produced every month.
* In the past 12 months Rochdale council have produced 6 issues.
* Local Matters costs the council the staff equivalent of approximately £9,000 per annum in editorial time and approximately £3,500 per issue in internal design time. The former figure excludes on-costs such as National Insurance.
* It costs £14,463 to print every issue.