Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the Public Notice Portal’s contribution to improving public engagement with statutory notices, and how its archive and consultation functions will be incorporated into the forthcoming local media strategy.

The Government committed to a review of statutory notices as part of the response to recommendations made by the Licensing policy taskforce in July, including in relation to alcohol licence notices. The review is being taken forward as part of the Local Media Strategy to support local journalism.

We recognise that local press and statutory notices in particular continue to play a central role in keeping communities informed about decisions that affect local services and amenities. In this context, the industry’s Public Notice Portal is a welcome innovation, taking advantage of print publishers’ growing digital audiences and providing a centralised resource for all types of public notice. We welcome the Portal's current expansion to include archive and consultation functions, helping public bodies and commercial entities engage with the public more effectively. DCMS is monitoring the progress of the Portal, and the effect that it has on the audience reach of statutory notices and overall public engagement.

This type of industry innovation and collaboration is integral to securing the sector’s future, and will be taken into account in the statutory notices review, which will more broadly consider the merits of making changes to existing requirements to place statutory notices in print local newspapers, including the impact this has on local transparency and the newspaper industry. The review will also take forward final decisions on the future of alcohol licence notices. More detail including timescales of the review, and the Local Media Strategy more broadly, will be announced in due course.