When the Island Independents came into power at the beginning of May 2013, one of the first things they did was to scrap the Isle of Wight council’s One Island Magazine.
In 2010, the full-colour publication produced by the council and distributed via the County Press was referred to by Labour councillor Geoff Lumley as “glossy propaganda”.
At the time, he was calling for the magazine to be produced just twice a year, as opposed to bi-monthly. Following debate at the October 2010 full council meeting, the motion was put to the vote and lost.
“Look to local media to take up some of the slack”
On hearing the news that the magazine had been scrapped, OnTheWight spoke to deputy leader of the Isle of Wight council, Cllr Steve Stubbings. He told us,
“The new Independent administration is serious about cutting costs in a difficult financial climate, wherever possible without laying off staff. We are currently engaged in establishing alternative ways of informing the public of our activities, and look to the local media, both print and online, to take up some of the slack.
“Our Root and branch service review will almost certainly reveal other areas where significant savings might be generated, and we remain committed to the promises we made, pre election, about openness and transparency.”
Extensive analysis of the costs
One Island was originally published monthly (from 2006), moved to bi-monthly in 2009 and then quarterly in 2011.
Long-time readers of this site may remember back in 2010 OnTheWight carried out an analysis of the costs related to production of the magazine.
True costs?
Naturally, we had access to print and distribution costs via our Armchair Auditor site, but seemed to meet resistance from the then-Conservative-led council when trying to get to the bottom of the true costs.
A press officer stated that the editorial content (written/design/photographic/sub-editing etc) was produced by various members of the council’s communications department as part of their overall duties.
OnTheWight had asked for a breakdown of how those costs would be charged to the project, much the same way as the legal dept might charge their time to other departments for working on specific projects.
No definitive answer was forthcoming, so the true costs or producing it were never made public.
