June 7, 2016 4.45 pm
This story is over 69 months old
Cash-strapped Lincolnshire councils forced to spend £3.1m on printed public notices
Calls are mounting for an end to “costly, outdated and ineffective” laws which force councils to publish notices in local newspapers, which have cost Lincolnshire taxpayers over £3.1 million in the past five years. A Freedom of Information request by The Lincolnite to all 10 councils in the Greater Lincolnshire region has revealed that the…
Calls are mounting for an end to “costly, outdated and ineffective” laws which force councils to publish notices in local newspapers, which have cost Lincolnshire taxpayers over £3.1 million in the past five years.
A Freedom of Information request by The Lincolnite to all 10 councils in the Greater Lincolnshire region has revealed that the authorities paid a staggering £3,129,542.42 to print newspapers over the past five years.
This figure is potentially even higher as one local authority (East Lindsey) only disclosed data over a four-year-period.
Now, both the leaders of Lincolnshire County Council and City of Lincoln Council have declared their frustration at the costly law.
The £3.1 million figure is in addition to nearly £1.3 million Lincolnshire County Council and City of Lincoln Council have spent producing their own magazines in the same period, something both councils describe as “excellent value for money”.
Outdated legislation
Councils have a statutory duty to publish public notices such as planning applications and road closures under laws brought in nearly 45 years ago.
However, critics have pointed out that the legislation does not take into account how people actually consume news in the 21st century, with nothing in the law that mentions the rise in mobile, tablet and desktop use compared with dwindling traditional newspaper circulation.
Newspapers are also able within the law to charge inflated prices for these council notices.
According to the Local Government Information Unit, which has called for radical reform of the way public notices are distributed, the individual cost of publishing a notice can be upwards of three times that for a normal advert, reaching over £20 per column cm in some publications.
The table below illustrates the real cost to taxpayers across Lincolnshire of the antiquated legislation.
The amount spent by the 10 Lincolnshire councils on public notices over the past five years
Some of the local authorities said that they were unable to break the costs down by publication.
However, Lincolnshire County Council, which covers the whole of the region excluding North and North-East Lincolnshire was able to break down the figures as requested.
Lincolnshire County Council Leader Martin Hill. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Councillor Martin Hill, leader of Lincolnshire County Council, said that the council has a statutory obligation to publish notices in local newspapers, but added that the cost of this requirement is “enormous”.
He said: “In these austere times for local government, when we are having to reduce the things we do to keep frontline services running, this is very frustrating. The requirement to publish notices is hugely expensive.
“Over the past five years, advertising public notices has cost us in the region of £1.7m which is an enormous amount of money.
“We have always thought this is an unnecessary expense and not the best use of taxpayers’ money, but our hands remain tied.
We would much rather advertise the notices online at little to no cost.
“This would also make it easier for people to find the information, as notices towards the back pages of newspapers could easily be missed.
“We have lobbied the government to make changes and were encouraged they were looking at reviewing the requirement, but unfortunately these plans seem to have stalled.”
City of Lincoln Council Leader, Councillor Ric Metcalfe
City of Lincoln Council leader, Councillor Ric Metcalfe, has also said that he would welcome a change in the law that allowed public notices to be placed online.
He said: “Clearly, there are other things we would prefer to use the money on but, at this moment in time, placing public notices in newspapers is an easy and relatively cost-effective way of communicating important information to people in the city.
“Government has, for quite some time, been looking at potentially changing this requirement and allowing notices to be placed online instead.
“While we would welcome this decision there are people in the city who do not have internet access so, while a financial saving would initially be made, we would still need to ensure important messages are received by all.”
Campaign for change
The campaign for change stretches far further than council leaders in Lincolnshire.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils at a national level, has long campaigned for an end to the current legislation.
A spokesperson for the LGA said: “The LGA has long been calling for the system of delivering statutory notices to be reformed.
The current system is costly, outdated and ineffective, and there are better ways of councils and local news organisations working together to improve the way statutory notices are communicated.
Low tax pressure group The TaxPayers’ Alliance has also lent its support for an overhaul of the current legislation, stating that money wasted in this way could be used to save precious council services.
Jonathan Isaby, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Residents will struggle to understand how councils could’ve possibly considered this to be good value for taxpayers’ money.
“When times are hard and authorities across the country are having to make necessary savings, every penny must be spent wisely.
“Councils must get their priorities right and channel precious resources towards funding essential services like adult social care.”
The Department for Communities and Local Government has recently run a series of pilot projects designed to find more modern and cost-effective ways for councils to inform residents about developments in the neighbourhood.
The project, called Statutory Notices for the 21st Century, funded 24 pilots to test new innovative ways of publishing and marketing statutory notices.
The pilots had the buy-in of both the Local Government Association (LGA) and the News Media Association (NMA).
What the money could have been used for
Photo: The Lincolnite
Put into context, the £1.7 million Lincolnshire County Council spent on printed public notices over the past five years is almost exactly the same amount the authority claims it is saving from changes to libraries and street lights, and slightly more than the amount it anticipates saving from the controversial proposals for Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue.
As previously reported, Lincolnshire County Council has cut the number of libraries from 45 to 15, with the remainder being transformed into community-run hubs with 10 others.
The authority claims this saves around £1.7 million a year.
Similarly, the decision to revert over half of Lincolnshire’s 68,000 street lights to a ‘part-night’ lighting system has been introduced in a bid to save £1.7 million because the council claims it cannot afford to provide services at its current level.
Finally, the proposed changes to Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue which would see Lincoln South fire station downgraded are expected to save the authority £1.67 million over three years, about £35,000 less than the amount spent on public notices.
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Over £8,000 of funding has been presented to local charities as part of a Lincoln College Group campaign that has raised almost £100,000 over the years since it launched.
Lincoln College’s Pink Ribbon Campaign began in 2006, after a staff member was diagnosed with breast cancer, and since then money has been raised internally with the organising of numerous fundraising events and activities.
These include climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, producing a college calendar, holding Pink Ribbon Balls and Race Nights, along with much more over the years.
Donations for this year were presented to Lincs and Notts Air Ambulance, St Barnabas Hospice, MacMillan, Marie Curie, the British Heart Foundation, British Polio Fellowship, the Children’s Bereavement Centre in Newark, and the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Each charity was given a cheque of £1,000 each, which brought the campaign’s overall fundraising to £92,000 in sixteen years.
Karen Carter, the charity’s fundraising manager, said: “We’d like to thank everyone who supported and donated to the Pink Ribbon Appeal and would like to thank Lincoln College for choosing to support us.
“We don’t receive any government funding and we’re not part of the NHS so we rely purely on public donations for our day to day operations. This generous donation will help our doctors and paramedics be by the side of patients when they need them the most.”
Lauren Alexander, Marie Curie senior community fundraiser for Lincolnshire, said: “The Pink Ribbon Campaign fundraising efforts are just incredible – the donation will fund a further 50 hours of nursing care within the county during the middle of the night for a family to be able to stay close to their loved ones. Thank you from the whole Marie Curie Family.”
Fundraising Manager for the Children’s Bereavement Centre, Rachel Wilson, said: “On behalf of all the team at the Children’s Bereavement Centre and the families we support, a heartfelt thank you to everyone involved in this amazing scheme and for your continued support.
“Giving is not about making a donation, it’s about making a difference. Thank you for helping us make a difference to the children and young people we support.”
Mark Locking, Principal and CEO, The Lincoln College Group, said: “Our Pink Ribbon Campaign is an amazing initiative and something we are hugely proud of. The money raised is down to the efforts of our staff who work hard each year to continue to build on the campaign’s success.
“It’s great to hear how the money raised goes on to help local people through the amazing work of our local charities.”
A mum-of-three in North Hykeham has created a group dubbed the ‘Mary Poppins Gang’ – who push prams around the streets with lifelike baby dolls.
Linda Royle, 63, is an avid collector previously amassing high numbers of mugs, thimbles and pot dogs, while her husband Barry has a lot of vintage radios.
Over the past decade, Linda has amassed more than 50 vintage prams and pushchairs, as well as around 20 reborn dolls who she goes for walks with, along with her ‘Lincolnshire Vintage Pram Group’. She also had to have a purpose-built shed to house her large collection.
The reborn dolls look very lifelike. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Linda Royle and Chris Perkins walking with reborn dolls in vintage prams. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
After reading a news article around 30 years ago about a woman from Skellingthorpe who made reborn dolls to look like real babies, Linda joked about taking her son Darryl to have one created.
She started her collection in 2011 when she attended a doll show and bought her first reborn doll. When she got home Linda started doing some research and purchased a pram locally, that she said was “similar to the one I had as a child which I adored”.
Reborn dolls sitting in a line in the garden. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Linda had to have a purpose-built shed to house her large collection. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Linda told The Lincolnite: “I then bit the bullet and got a full-size one and then my collection kept growing and I had to have a purpose built shed to house them all.”
Then in 2018 Linda set up the ‘Lincolnshire Vintage Pram Group’ on Facebook which has more than 70 members from across the country, but she wants to encourage more local people from Lincolnshire to join as she doesn’t think there are enough pram days happening locally.
It originally started as a Lincoln group, but she soon met other people on days out and at doll shows who wanted to come and bring their prams, so she changed it to have a county wide focus.
Linda makes blankets and accessories for the prams and dolls. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Linda has around 20 reborn dolls and over 50 vintage prams and pushchairs in her collection. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
More reborn dolls from Linda’s collection. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Linda has more than 50 vintage prams and pushchairs in her collection. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
The group has attended the 1940s weekend at Woodhall Spa, a 40s day in Sleaford, Rufford Abbey, Newark Retro Festival, Nottingham Vintage Fayre, the International Bomber Command Centre, a pram walk in Cleethorpes, and a motorcycle museum in Solihull.
The group’s activities were stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but doll shows are now back up and running again and Linda is hoping to get back out with the prams soon.
She has also hosted events in her large garden in North Hykeham where she raises money, including for Bliss, which is the leading UK charity for babies born prematurely or sick, and for Dementia UK after sadly losing her mum to the condition in 2020. The events also include a raffle and a stall where she sells knitted items.
Linda holding a reborn doll from her collection. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Linda, who has three grown-up sons called Lindsey, Darryl, and Shaun, as well as two grandchildren, said: “My pram and baby collection is still growing but I am not the only mad woman. I would like to find some local ladies as well, and then they will find out when your own children and grandchildren have grown too big for the prams you can still get enjoyment out of them.
“People still love to see them out and about instead of these fold-up buggies. It also gets you out meeting new friends with something in common as we all have our own problems at home that we need a break from, and strangers will stop you and want to know about them.
“Most people admire the prams, but some say they are spooky. We get all sorts of comments. I can’t expect everyone to like them.
“I would be bored stiff looking through someone’s stamp collection, but it doesn’t mean it is wrong to collect them.
“Everybody at some point has been in a pram. It’s not just a mature person’s hobby, it’s a social thing too.”
Linda has been collecting reborn dolls and vintage prams for over a decade. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Linda and Chris going for a walk with reborn dolls in their vintage prams. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
For the vintage prams, she has paid between £100 and £750 on them. She recently purchased a vintage pushchair for £20, and the reborn dolls cost upwards from £150 each. Linda said she knits things and sells them to fund her “addiction”.
Earlier this year a photo of the group was posted on a local North Hykeham Facebook page calling them the ‘Mary Poppins Gang’. When asked about this, Linda added: “Any publicity is good publicity, they could have called us worse.”
Group member Chris Perkins holding a reborn doll. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Fellow group member Chris Perkins, who is from Northampton, has collected five vintage prams and 14 reborn dolls over the past eight years.
Chris had a granddaughter who she initially didn’t think was going to survive, but she did. She then saw a doll that looked like her granddaughter and bought it for her before then purchasing more for her other grandchildren, and the reborn dolls are now in her collection.