Council being 'economical with the truth' about commercial adverts

Rochdale Borough Council has over the past few weeks repeatedly said it would not take commercial advertising in its 'propaganda' magazine, Local Matters, and yet the issue just dropping through letterboxes has a full back page advert from a private company based in Warwick.

Asked previously to clarify what adverts the council would seek for Local Matters, this was qualified as only from the council's "partner" organisations.

Cabinet member for finance, Councillor Greg Couzens said: “This will be on the same basis that we deliver advertising in Local Matters which means advertising will be restricted to the council’s own services and partner organisations only."

Though this stance still impacts adversely on the local private sector, it is in effect the council advertising its own services because most of the organisations people understand to be 'partner' organisations, such as Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, Rochdale Development Agency, Link4Life, etc are still to all intents and purposes under council 'control'.

Challenged on the clearly commercial advert on the back page, Council Communications Manager insisted the company was a council 'partner'.