What’s in the 40 page contract to distribute Wirral Council’s controversial Wirral View newspaper?

                                        

Last year Wirral Council asked organisations to bid for the delivery contract for its controversial Wirral View newspaper.

The distribution contract (Lot 2) was awarded to Smart Distribution Solutions Ltd for three years starting on 1st December 2017 (with an option to extend for a further two years).

Despite in section 5 of the contract Smart Distribution Solutions Ltd stating that they would be able to guarantee full coverage of delivery door to door, the publication has suffered distribution problems.

The notice of election for the Bromborough ward byelection was published on the 19th July 2018 and issue 18 of Wirral View was published on the 23rd July 2018. In previous election periods distribution of Wirral View has ceased during the election period until the result is declared.

Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 5th July 2018

Last month, Wirral Council’s Head of Communications (the senior manager responsible for the Wirral View publication) Kevin McCallum stated at a public meeting to councillors, “Given we don’t do Wirral View publications in purdah and we’ve had a number of different elections, local, national and regional in the past couple of years, we’ve done seventeen editions since now. The last one was our seventeenth, the next edition goes to the printers next week and will be distributed the following weekend.”

A copy of the forty page contract for distribution of the Wirral View (minus parts Wirral Council has redacted on grounds of personal information or commercial confidentiality) is below.

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