Scarborough Borough Council publishes a free newspaper, called `Borough News', four times a year (spring, summer, autumn and winter). The circulation is approximately 57,000.

In the financial year 2008/09 the total costs of production and distribution for the four issues were £33,400 (before deducting advertising revenue). The amount budgeted for the current financial year (2009/10) is £29,000 (this takes into account expected advertising revenue).

Advertising revenue does vary slightly from issue to issue, but on average over the last three years, the total advertising revenue per year has been approximately £4,400.

Virtually all this revenue comes from external sources. Very occasionally, maybe once every 18 months a council department decides to place an advert, but this activity is discouraged as it defeats the object of saving the council money.

We don't normally carry any advertising from other public sector partners in our paper, however in the latest issue, North Yorkshire County Council's Road Safety team did place an advert in our newspaper.

Recruitment advertising never features in our newspaper.

We don't have a formal editorial guide but the general guidelines we adhere to are:

All stories must be news directly related to the work of Scarborough Borough Council that we need to inform our residents about. Stories illustrating strong partnership links between Scarborough Borough Council and other public sector agencies for the benefit of our residents are also allowed, but are assessed by the editor on a story-by-story basis. Stories that could be interpreted as having a particular political bias are not permitted.

The newspaper does not contain entertainment listings.

A general request for story ideas is emailed out to all council staff at the start of planning for every issue. Any member of staff can submit an idea for a story, providing they discuss it first with their line manager or head of service. Final editorial decision on what goes in the paper is down to the Communications Officer, as editor, based on what are the most important current issues for the council at the time of production.

We don't have a formal advertising guide but the general guidelines we adhere to are:

We do not permit any advertising that may be deemed offensive, shocking or discriminatory. We also do not permit any advertising of a political nature e.g. electioneering campaigns. As mentioned in answer number 4, advertising from our council departments is discouraged.

Advertising space takes up approximately 10% to 12% of the overall newspaper.

Advertising designs have to be of good quality.

Two members of staff work on putting the newspaper together: the Communications Officer (as editor) and the Communications and Marketing Assistant. Neither of the two members of staff work on the newspaper full time, that is, producing the newspaper is just one of the many responsibilities that forms part of their day to day jobs and is included in their job descriptions. In addition to that, another member of staff (Britain in Bloom Coordinator) helps out with an average of two hours of photography per issue, again as just one element of their day-to-day job.

In terms of how this department sits in the overall council organisation, the Communications Officer reports directly to the Chief Executive and both the Communications and Marketing Assistant, and Britain in Bloom Coordinator report directly to the Communications Officer.