Voiceless? Or Just Hard to Hear?

I will miss Llais y Sir/County Voice. Keeping abreast of council business should be everyone's business. It's too important to keep to itself. Through County Voice, I learnt a lot about issues we all face. How else, for example, were we supposed to know that we shouldn't recycle soiled food cardboard and dirtied food paper packaging? I was guilty of that. It might seem trivial but, apparently, just small amounts can contaminate a whole batch of otherwise good recyclable paper.

Nevertheless, when faced with a choice of County Voice or axing some vital service, I am sure that the council made the right decision to drop the newspaper. County Voice cost £40,000 in 2009/10. Assuming inflation, the cost in 2014/15 is c.£45,000. It was distributed to 44,000 homes, so the cost p.a. per household was just £1 or 25p per edition.

For those who need it, from today in fact, we now have an alternative: an electronic version. It isn't particularly easy to find online, yet. And I don't know about you but I find that if I read something on paper I'm far more inclined to digest and remember it. But needs must, as they say.

Under the Council's County Voice FAQ, it's said that the electronic copy will save the council over £30,000 (in print and distribution costs). Yet, the budget information presented to councillors and the chief executive's very own County Voice introduction mentions either £19,000 or up to £20,000. We can only assume that the sub-editors had not spotted the error. Using accountancy prudence, the actually figure we've chosen is £19,000 rather than £30,000. We suggest that the electronic version will therefore weigh in at about £25,000 p.a.; or about £6,300 per edition; or about 57p per household p.a.—when in time it gets popular enough to be "circulated" beyond the 5,000 current e-subscribers.

Assuming one subscriber per household, if 5,000, then that equates to £5 per household p.a. But that's not a true reflection of the saving made. It might be more accurate to say it is £19,000 per 5,000 e-subscribers or £3.80 each.

In the past, Denbighshire council's communications have taken a number of paths. Life began with a regular council-supported column in the Free Press that highlighted the work of the cabinet and the council. It was ostensibly written by the council's then leader. The council decided to issue its own newspaper and Llais y Sir/County Voice came out monthly and even included council jobs. Originally, it adopted an interesting bilingual stance of Welsh & English side-by-side rather than the more traditional back-to-back publicity. County Voice courted controversy as being deemed by some to be expensive and several years ago budget cuts resulted in a quarterly rather than monthly publication.