The move comes shortly after the borough decided to take as much work back in-house as possible and follows the installation of a Canon C6000 digital press.

Newham previously printed penalty charges, plus other public information, from its mainframe computer, but now the C6000 allows it to offer business cards, compliment slips, posters and A5 four-page brochures and leaflets.

Print services manager Stephen Malyon said: "We now have control of all the jobs in-house, so if something is urgent, we can turn it round very quickly.

"Creasing by hand is time-consuming and does not give the professional finish we require. Sending a job out to be done takes about five to seven working days."