OPINION: Culture change needed within the Council’s ‘communications’ department

In March this year, Rochdale Online reported that following the massive increase in councillors’ allowances, the bill to local taxpayers in 2018 would top £1million. Having failed to get Rochdale Online censured by the press regulator, this week, in the face of mounting criticism nationally, the council still maintained it was right to go to the regulator with a complaint.

The story was based on figures provided by Rochdale Borough Council in response to a Freedom of Information request, which showed that in February allowances paid had totalled £75,000. Taking that figure and multiplying by 12 months and adding employer national insurance contributions the total for the year comes to over £1million – and this does not take into account the cost of extra perks.

https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/117236/councillors%E2%80%99-allowances-will-top-one-million

Following attempts by the Council’s head of communications to intimidate Rochdale Online into removing the story, the Council made a formal complaint to the press regulator, IPSO, on the grounds Rochdale Online had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in its reporting of the figures.

IPSO ruled against the complaint stating that the information in the article was based on information provided by the Council and added: "The publication had taken care over the accuracy of this claim and there was no breach of Clause 1 (i)."

The Council appealed against IPSO’s decision to the Independent Complaints Reviewer, however its appeal was also rejected.

On Wednesday, the story was picked up and run by ‘PR Week’ with the headline ‘Rochdale Council complaint to IPSO backfires’.

https://www.prweek.com/article/1489295/rochdale-council-complaint-ipso-backfires

Quoted in the PR Week article are national journalists scathing about the Council’s conduct.

Patrick Smith, news editor at BuzzFeed UK, branded the council’s decision to complain to IPSO "utterly ridiculous", while ITV journalist Charlotte Cross tweeted: "What a waste of everyone's time."

Francis Ingham, director general of the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), had good advice for the Council's PR team, saying: "What they won’t do is go to IPSO and ensure that what might be a mildly embarrassing story achieves even greater prominence."

He added: "The great majority of council press teams do indeed have a good, mature, and sensible working relationship with councillors and local journalists - that’s why this kind of story is very much the exception."

At this point readers would be forgiven for assuming that the Council would hold up its collective hands, apologise and say ‘we got it wrong’. That assumption would be wrong, as can be gleaned from the quote to PR Week by the Council’s assistant director for information, customers and communities, John Rooney, who refuses to accept the conclusion of IPSO and the Independent Complaints Reviewer, the criticism of national journalists, and advice of the director general of the PRCA, maintaining, "we feel we took appropriate action by approaching IPSO in this instance".

Mr Rooney also told PR Week: "We value being approached by journalists who are seeking full and accurate information through our communications team or via Freedom of Information requests."

We disagree, in our long experience of dealing with Rochdale Council’s ‘communications’ team we have all too frequently found some members of the team (not all) to be obstructive and discriminatory.

It is in the interests of all for there to be a mutually respectful relationship. However, for that to happen, it is our view that there needs to be a long overdue culture change within the Council’s ‘communications’ department.