Robert Brown slams SNP advert plans

12.00.00am GMT Fri 8th Jan 2010

Glasgow MSP Robert Brown has slammed SNP Government plans to allow councils to advertise public notices online rather than in local newspapers.

The plans were proposed to allow councils to save £6 million a year.

Public notices are used to display information that councils are legally required to publish.

Many are used for issues of planning, licensing, road closure or closure of council services or offices for a period of time.

The Government proposals would instead post all of these notices online.

However an Ofcom report states that only 32% of those in Glasgow have access to broadband at home, against a figure of 57% for the rest of UK.

Robert Brown said:

"I am extremely unhappy about Government proposals on this matter.

"Whilst saving scarce funds is important, the priority has got to be for the public to know about the major and often controversial proposals which could affect them and their communities.

"I am in no means convinced in an area like Glasgow, where internet uptake is nearly the worst in the UK - with less than a third of people having internet access at home - that putting important information on websites should be the only way of getting out important information.

"There is also a major concern about the effects on the viability of local newspapers - these adverts make up a sizable chunk of advertising income at a time of worldwide recession and advertising slump. Newspapers are very reliant on this income.

"I've already raised these problems with Ministers in the context of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill going through Parliament.

"The issue here is about democracy, and citizens have a right to know about decisions which could change their lives.

"It is not unreasonable to require that information should be available in a medium that is readily available and accessible to more than 32% of the population.

"If notices they are hidden online, and you have to purposely seek them out, fewer people will be informed about what is going on in their communities.

"Why would you go out of the way to go onto the internet to see if there are any notices that might just affect you? The whole point about putting them in a newspaper is that you come across them while you are reading the news."

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