Local restrictions
The Local Government Act 1986 says the Council must not publish anything, (including issuing news releases) which appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party. The act also says we must have regard to codes of practice about publicity as issued by the government. We'll follow the code where publicity is addressed to the public at large, or a section of it, although different rules may apply where the council is consulting with the users of specific services. Other areas of legislation require that the council does not act incompatibly with individuals’ right to respect for their private and family life, home and correspondence, under the Human Rights Act 1998, and must only disclose personal data in line with the Data Protection Act.
Key legal points to note:
- publicity describing the Council’s policies and aims should be as objective as possible, concentrating on facts or explanation of both
- publicity used to comment on, or respond to, the policies or proposals of the government, or other public authorities, should be objective, balanced, informative and accurate, and not prejudiced, unreasoning or party political
- publicity relating to the provision of a service should concentrate on providing factual information about the service
- publicity on controversial issues should not over-simplify facts, issues or arguments
- publicity should not attack or appear to undermine, generally accepted moral standards
- the Council must not use public funds to mount publicity campaigns whose primary purpose is to persuade the public to hold a particular view on a question of policy
- publicity about the views or activities of individual councillors is only appropriate where they are representing the Council as a whole and usually in an official capacity such as executive portfolio holder
- between publishing a notice of an election and polling day, publicity should not be issued which deals with controversial issues, or which reports views or policies in a way that identifies them with individual parties, political groups or groups of councillors
- press releases and media interviews generally should not deal with issues about identifiable councillors, groups of councillors or individuals
- the Council‘s publicity must not criticise other organisations or individuals to the extent that this could be defamatory