Special investigation: The millions being spent by public bodies on Northamptonshire news
Our Freedom of Information requests have uncovered the millions being spent by public bodies on communications professionals
“. . . policies and decisions that are offered to the public are increasingly chosen by the organisations’ communications teams, pre-packaged for publication online or in print, and gratefully accepted by news outlets to supplement their own original output.”
David Penman, former editor of the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph
By Sarah Ward
More than three million pounds each year is being spent by Northamptonshire’s large public sector bodies on communications, which are increasingly influencing the Northamptonshire news environment.
In two separate Freedom of Information requests, NN Journal asked the nine largest public sector organisations for their spend on communications and the numbers of staff they employ. We found that since the unitary councils first budgets in the financial year 2021/22 more than £3m has been spent annually by the organisations.
Our investigation, which started with an information request in July 2022, followed up by a second this April, found that communications professionals are also outnumbering journalists in the county by two to one, a consequence of the decline of Northants’ local newspapers and broadcasters.
The nine organisations that we surveyed are: North Northamptonshire Council (NNC), West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) , Northants Police, Northants Fire, The Office of the Police, Fire and Crime commissioner (OFPCC), Kettering General Hospital, Northampton General Hospital, Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust and the Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board.
Our investigation found that in the financial year 2021/22 at least £3.398m was spent by the organisations collectively on communications, with at least £2.889m of that amount spent on salaries of communications staff.1
In our second FOI, not all of the organisations responded within the 20 day deadline which was May 27 and they had not been received by June 10. NNC did not meet the FOI requirement, therefore the overall collective spend by these organisations cannot be worked out. 2
But what we can tell from the responses received is that each organisation has slightly increased its comms spend in the most recent financial year, with the biggest spender, West Northamptonshire Council increasing its spend by 20 per cent between the three financial years.
The table of communications spend is posted at the bottom of this article.
Changing times
Over the past twenty years there has been a shift in the dynamics between local newspapers and news producers and the public authorities. Whereas two decades ago reporting staff in a newspaper office would have heavily outnumbered the staff working to manage information in the public organisations, now the reverse is true. Currently in the nine organisations we FOId there are 65 communications officers, an average of seven per organisation, with WNC and Northants Police both employing 15 communications staff each.
The news releases they send regularly throughout each day are increasingly setting the news agenda and rather than having to rely on newspapers and broadcasters to share their messages, the organisations now have their own social media channels to disseminate their information without the need to have it scrutinised or questioned by the media.
In contrast we estimate there are around 35 Northamptonshire journalists, with about 15 employed by the two weekly newspapers, plus NN Journal, the local democracy reporter and about 15 dedicated Northants reporters across BBC radio, online and broadcast.
David Penman, was editor of the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph from 2001 to 2005. When he was editor, the newspaper employed 40 full time journalists across four offices in Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough and Rushden. He says roughly the same number was employed by its sister paper the Northampton Chronicle.
He said:
“In the years since I left the industry – later teaching Journalism at a university – I have witnessed the decline of local and national newspapers with increasing dismay. Hopes of a prosperous digital future to replace the profitable era of newsprint have not been realised and inevitably the number of professional journalists employed by the old titles have declined precipitously.
“This decline has been matched by a growth in the numbers of communications professionals employed by the public sector. The regional press once played a critical role in local democracy, holding politicians and local authorities to account. By reporting on council decisions, questioning and scrutinising policies and informing the public how their taxes were being spent enabling voters to make informed choices.
“The major players of the past are no longer able to do this to the same extent due to limited resources. The result is that the policies and decisions that are offered to the public are increasingly chosen by the organisations’ communications teams, pre-packaged for publication online or in print, and gratefully accepted by news outlets to supplement their own original output.”
Local authorities
West Northamptonshire Council is the highest spender on communications of all the authorities we surveyed.
The data provided by WNC shows that in its first year of operating (2021/22) it spent £793,875 on communications, with £590,130 of that on the salaries of 14 staff. The spend in the most recent financial year 2023/24 had increased to just £45,000 short of one million, at a total of £955,594. £760,770 of that went on salaries, with its head of communications officer paid between £82,000 and £88,000 -the largest salary of all the organisations surveyed.
In contrast North Northamptonshire Council spent £503,000 in 2021/22 employing ten staff at £380,000. Two of this team are dedicated to external communications. The council’s FOI response for the most recent financial year’s communications spend is overdue.
NN Journal asked WNC why its spend is so substantial, a spokesperson said:
“As one of the country’s largest unitary authorities serving over 400,000 residents, we are committed to proactively engaging with our communities to ensure openness and transparency. Hundreds of projects, campaigns and activities benefiting our residents have been promoted over the past year, including key updates on cost-of-living support, health and wellbeing and other important local issues.
“An independent review from the Local Government Association has shown that the Council’s communications resource is lower than similar-sized local authorities (WNC 15 FTE [full time equivalent], average 23.5 FTE, some have over 30 FTE.)
“Our communications team delivers design, marketing, videography and photography for all council campaigns, providing value for money within existing budgets without the need for expensive consultancy services.
“We continue to see an increase in demand from residents seeking our news and information, particularly on our digital channels where we reach over 640,000 people every month. We also respond to over 1,000 media enquiries a year, ensuring we remain accountable and transparent to members of the press and public.”
National World, which owns the Northampton Chronicle and the Northants Telegraph, now allows organisations to upload their own stories to their news websites, marking the story as written by a contributor.3 Until a few months ago it was not being flagged up that the contributor was also linked to the organisation being written about.
The Chronicle has published a number of articles by Rebecca Hutson, who is the head of communications for WNC.
Examples like this one about the council’s planning peer review do not indicate that Rebecca Hutson works for the council and is in charge of managing its reputation.
Last week five articles were posted to the Northampton Chronicle website by Rebecca Hutson, (her connection to the council has been made clear).
The North Northamptonshire Council does not submit its media releases to the website of the Northants Telegraph.
Another way in which media scrutiny has declined is the absence of media invitations to council public events. These events used to be opportunities for local media to ask further questions of elected councillors and senior officers, however these are now rare and happen infrequently. At the most recent media invite event held about the launch of the county’s serious violence reduction strategy, NN Journal was not invited by WNC, despite having written about the strategy previously. When we challenged the authority as to why we were not on the invite list, we were told by the council’s deputy head of media that we were not classed as ‘core media’. Core media according to WNC in Northants is the BBC, ITV and the local democracy reporting service.
The county’s police force
Northants Police spent £660,834 on communications in 2021/23, with the majority of its spend going on the salaries of its 15 staff (£635,868). We are awaiting the figure for communications spend for the most recent financial year, which should be sent by June 19.4
The Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner spent £266,670 on communications in the most recent financial year (2023/24) which included salaries of £228,000 for five media officers who work for both the commissioner’s office and the county’s fire service.
The Northants Police force has by far the biggest social media clout among Northants public bodies, with 213,000 followers on its FaceBook page and 113,000 X followers. It also posts videos to its YouTube channel, which has 9,400 subscribers.
Therefore it does not need to rely on the newspapers and broadcasters to relay its information and appeals as it once did.
Last Monday the force posted seven items to its media page all of which were then republished by the county’s two newspapers.
It also posts court reports as the county no longer has a dedicated court reporter.
A 2022 report by the Charitable Journalism Project called "Local News Deserts in the UK" found that across the country police communications teams were often better resourced than the local media.
Meanwhile, the access to its senior officers has also reduced. After the murder of Rohan Shand in Northampton, the media were called to record and take notes on a statement of an officer at the scene, but those present were told no questions could be asked.
When two women were found dead in their homes this year (Ewa Kotulska in Corby and Valentyna Horshkova in Northampton) NN Journal asked to interview the senior investigating officer. We were refused on both occasions. We asked to interview suspended chief constable Nick Addereley a number of times since 2021 and were always refused.
Northamptonshire Police spokeswoman said:
“Our main priorities during a Major Crime investigation, particularly when someone dies, are:
To work to the best of our ability to solve the case.
To ensure specialist officers are deployed to the victim’s family to provide them with dedicated support and to get them the answers they need.
To issue regular updates to the wider community to provide information and reassurance to the public.
“As well as this, we always seek to ensure the media are provided with content throughout the investigation, including regular written updates and opportunities to film senior officers.
“We understand that people will want to ask further questions, however what we issue proactively is often all we can say at that time, with everything else forming part of the live investigation. This is especially the case when arrests have been made.
“Furthermore, the senior officer reading the statement at the scene is often the Local Area Commander and not the Senior Investigating Officer [SIO]. This is because the community are more familiar with them and also because we need to let the SIO carry out their primary responsibility - solving the case - within a collapsing timeframe.
“We also have to take relatives’ wishes into account when providing the media and the public with information and interview opportunities, to ensure that an event which has turned a family’s life upside down is not sensationalised or speculated upon for the purposes of entertainment.
“Following the conclusion of a Major Crime investigation, the SIO often reads a piece outside court with journalists invited to ask questions afterwards.
“The Corporate Communications Team at Northamptonshire Police always seeks to assist journalists as much as it can and provide them with transparent, timely responses to any queries they put in, regardless of the topic, and all interview requests are considered on a case by case basis.
“On some occasions, we may not be able to provide information for operational reasons however we always seek to explain why.
“We endeavour to keep the media and the public as informed as possible with regards to our work, however safeguarding our investigations and ensuring cases reach a successful conclusion at court will always take primacy, and that means working within the strict confines of media law, specifically the Contempt of Court Act 1981.”
Health bodies
In the most recent financial year the Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board spent £337,000 on communications and employed four staff on salaries amounting to £122,540. Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust spent £558,236 on 12 staff, and Kettering General Hospital spent £305,000.
All of the organisations publish the news to their own website and social media channels. The boards of these health organisations meet quarterly, however are infrequently attended by journalists. NN Journal attended the most recent board meeting of the ICB and the January and April meetings of the hospital boards, but there were no other reporters in the room. There is not a specialist health reporter in the county.
Since the pandemic, NHFT’s board has continued to meet online, so there is not an opportunity to ask board members questions in person.
What happens next?
It is widely recognised the old model, in which advertisements in newspapers paid for reporters, has now been broken, as advertisers put their pounds into social media.
But there appears to be no financial replacement model on the horizon, which will bring local news back to its pre-social media early noughties heyday. In the meantime local journalism will continue to be out gunned by the media professionals protecting the reputations of their organisations. Communities will be worse off as a result.
Over the past few years there have been various reports and studies on the perilous state of local news (Northamptonshire has been called a ‘news desert’ in some studies) and the 2019 Cairncross Review found that the challenges to public interest news were most acute at the local news level.
Some argue that the big tech companies should fund local news, and others have suggested the central government should prop up the sector. However whether the news provided will then be truly independent is debatable. At NN Journal we have chosen a subscription model, which is paid for by readers who value our output. We are therefore accountable to subscribers rather than advertisers.
As former Northants Telegraph editor David Penman concludes:
“Some new entrants – notably NN Journal – are attempting to fill this democratic void, challenging and investigating, questioning and probing. But real journalism costs money and requires financial support. Some have suggested that local news providers should receive public funding but this looks unlikely to be a realistic solution.
“Large numbers of people are prepared to pay for streaming services such as Netflix and the like. Does journalism’s future lie in a similar approach? Time will tell.”
The Integrated Care Board does not form part of this figure as it was not in existence at this time and was previously known as the Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group.
The FOI email address for Northampton General Hospital, has changed since 2021 and after enquiring to chase the response, we were told we had sent our request to the previous email.
Following on from Indie News Week, we thought now would be a good time to show you where a large chunk of Northamptonshire’s news comes from - the public sector organisations funded by the taxpayer.
At NN Journal, none of the news we send to our readers is regurgitated from press releases. Our take is always original and always independent.
So if you want to support us, now is a great week to do so as the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) is matching subscriptions throughout this month. We will use this money to provide coverage of the general election in the run up to July 4 and including throughout election night.
The editor of the Northampton Chronicle has clarified how the system works: “Articles are submitted via the online portal into our content management system. Submissions are then checked by editorial before being published online. Contributors do not post directly to our website, unchecked, which is the impression given by the article.”
As pointed out to us after publication, Northants Police have until June 19 to respond, as they asked for clarification during the 20 day limit. We responded one week later and so the statutory limit is reset from this clarification date. The article has been amended.
Excellent reporting of an important facet of local life, in itself showing how essential independent journalism and scrutiny of our public bodies has become. If you agree, please get any and everyone you know to subscribe and support outlets like NNJ. I write as a retired reporter and editor for local, regional and national media in what I now see as a golden age.
Excellent piece, informative if not more than a little worrying for what it means for the future with council staff writing their own articles as though independent journalists.
Keep up the good work and providing us the stories we would otherwise not see.