In its fourth report on the future of regional media, published yesterday (6 April), the committee called on the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the ever increasing number of publications produced by local authorities and their impact on regional newspapers.
The report said publications, such as Portsmouth City Council's Flagship title, are "legitimate communications from a council to its citizen", but criticised others, including Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council's H&F News.
"Publications such as H&F News effectively pose as, and compete with, local commercial newspapers and are misleading to the public," it stated.
"It is unacceptable that a local authority can set up a newspaper in direct competition to the local commercial newspaper in this way. Nor should any council publication be a vehicle for political propaganda."
The report follows a high-profile campaign against H&F News by Trinity Mirror, which produces its own Chronicle title for the borough. Trinity claimed that the council publication was merely "propaganda" by the council.
The DCMS committee backed the Trinity campaign, saying that H&F News "effectively poses as a local commercial newspaper".
At the time, a spokesperson for the Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council responded, telling Journalism.co.uk: "H&F News was launched to fill a communications void because, for more than 10 years, Trinity Mirror had no interest in our borough and produced newspapers that very few residents wanted to read."
The DCMS report called for specific, detailed guidance for local authority newspapers and magazines that would make it mandatory for "all publications of this type to make clear, not only on the front page but throughout the publication, that they are a local authority publication".
According to the report, the average local authority title costs £70,000 to produce over the financial year, based on 2008/09 research.
However, the committee did also highlight the potential positives of council publications. For example, Hackney Borough Council awarded a four-year £4m print contract to Trinity Mirror for the production of its publication, Hackney Today.
