Newham council has replied to my FoI request about the cost of publishing statutory public notices.
Over the past 3 years the council has spent close to £119,000 on publishing these notices, more than 95% of it with the Newham Recorder. The balance – a mere £5,500 – went to the in-house Newham Mag. Notices also appear on the council’s website, but that costs nothing.
Sadly Newham couldn’t tell me whether anyone had responded or made enquiries as a result of seeing the published notices, as they do not record that information.
So, as far as we can tell, Newham is handing over an average of £40,000 a year to the Recorder for absolutely no public benefit whatsover. And there’s nothing they can do about it, as the law says they have to.
It is little short of outrageous.
forestgatedotnet 
Question is, why would Newham want to do anything about it?A tame press is worth an awful lot of other people’s money.40 grand a year sounds cheap at the price.Whatever the LGiU think tank may think about this supposed wasteful subsidy, the Mayor, like another famous publicist, probably thinks different.