Scottish councils stand accused of driving local newspapers out of business by withdrawing their advertising. The decision comes as concern also mounts south of the border over the role of council newspapers in contributing to the demise of local media, and the Audit Commission is about to launch a study into the issue. A Commons select committee on Scottish affairs found the newspaper industry was at risk of becoming commercially unviable because local authorities in Scotland had withdrawn job advertising and placed it on a new public sector portal. It concluded: ‘It is vital… that the Scottish newspaper industry is not made unviable through overbearing competition from public sector advertising.' At the same time, public notices such as planned road closures, were also being withdrawn from local newspapers and published on public sector portals, leading to an estimated loss in newspaper revenue of £10m. The committee's report, Crisis in the Scottish press industry' expressed concern that this would make the notices less widely available to the public. It stated: ‘We would ask the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Scottish Executive to produce evidence that substantial parts of the population would not be excluded before removing public notices entirely from print media.' Most likely to suffer would be the elderly and those not yet connect to the Internet, it claimed. But COSLA defended the move to advertising jobs on a combined public sector portal by Scotland's 32 councils, which was expected to save them £5m. A COSLA spokesman said: ‘Taxpayers expect to see councils deliver value for money, and they should deliver this by adopting innovative ways to engage with residents. ‘Newspapers across the UK are suffering from falling readerships, and this means they are no longer necessarily the best way for councils to reach residents.
