Hertfordshire County Council s1

Resources & Performance Director: Mike Parsons

L. Barnett Information Governance Unit Hertfordshire County Council Room C1, County Hall Pegs Lane, Hertford Hertfordshire SG13 8DQ

By email only Telephone: 01992 555848 Fax: 01992 588117 Email: [email protected]

Date: 27th January 2010

Dear L. Barnett,

Reference number: FOI/SPN/01/10/1739

On 4th January 2010 we received the following request for information from you:

1. The name, frequency and distribution/circulation of your council newspaper (by council newspaper I mean the most frequently published newspaper or magazine intended for mass distribution covering more than one topic)

2. How much it cost to produce and distribute said newspaper in the last full financial year, and how much was budgeted from council resources in the financial year 2009/2010

3. How much of that cost is offset by advertising

4. How much of that advertising, if any, comes from external sources (ie not from your authority's budgets)?

5. Which other public sector partners pay to run advertising in your newspaper, eg PCTs?

6. Whether recruitment advertising forms part of the advertising in your newspaper?

7. A copy of an editorial policy guide, if one exists, which governs the material which is placed in the newspaper, and how it is decided

8. A copy of an advertising policy guide, if one exists, which governs what sort of advertising is suitable.

www.hertsdirect.org Page 1 of 3 9. The number of people employed to put your newspaper/newsletter together, including total cost and staff organisation chart

Some parts of this request may be easier to answer than others, and should this prove to be the case I would ask that you release available data as soon as possible rather than hold up the entire request.

I would prefer to receive this information electronically. If the decision is made to withhold some of this data using exemptions in Act, please inform me of that fact and cite the exemptions used.

Your request for information has been considered under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I can confirm that Hertfordshire County Council does hold the information you have requested and can respond as follows:

1. Horizons. Published quarterly and distributed to approximately 470,000 Hertfordshire homes.

2. Horizons costs approximately £250,000 per financial year to produce and distribute.

3. Each edition generates a minimum of £20,000 advertising, therefore offsetting at least £80,000 of annual costs.

4. It varies year on year. In 2007/08, 50% of advertising spend came from external sources. In 2008/9 year it was 40%. The fact that internal departments advertise in the magazine still benefits council tax payers, as this money would otherwise be spent on publicity elsewhere.

5. Previous advertisers include Hertfordshire Police Authority, Hertfordshire Constabulary and the Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust.

6. Yes. Our recruitment centre operator, Manpower, advertises in every edition.

7. We do not have an editorial policy guide.

8. We do not have an advertising policy guide.

9. There is no member of staff working full-time on Horizons. Articles are written by officers and it is edited by the Media Manager, taking up approximately one day a month of her time. One Senior Communications officer spends approximately half a day a week working on the magazine. Another spends two to three days per edition to sell advertising/manage distribution. On this basis we estimate the costs to be £551 per month.

of 3 Please see separate attachment giving the organisation chart for our Communications Unit. As indicated above the relevant posts in respect of Horizons are Media Manager and Senior Communications Officer in Corporate and Internal Communications and Media teams , Horizons represents a small part of their total workload.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me, quoting the reference number on this letter. To find out more about Freedom of Information, please visit www.hertsdirect.org/foi

If you are unhappy with the way the County Council has handled your request for information, you may complain through the County Council's complaints procedure which is available at www.hertsdirect.org/complaints

If you are unhappy with the outcome of the complaints procedure you are entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to investigate your complaint. You should write to: FOI/EIR Complaints Resolution, Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely

Senior Information Access Practitioner Hertfordshire County Council

The Information Governance Unit supports Hertfordshire County Council's Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Records Management activity.