MEN Misleading Readers?

Are the MEN misleading its reader?


Following a review of Saturday's edition of Manchester's popular MEN paper, an article it published was not all it appeared to be.

The 'esteemed organ' for Manchester people ran an article on how Greater Manchester Councils would 'allow' it's residents to pay their Council Tax over 12 months instead of, under the current scheme, 10 months.

For one of our researchers, the tone of the article suggests that the Councils themselves are introducing this scheme 'off their own backs' and that this scheme is already available in 4 of Greater Manchesters Councils, including Manchester City Council.

Whilst the MEN does state in one paragraph that this is a Government 'order' by Local Government Minister, Eric Pickles, the overall 'feel' of the article, we currently believe, tends to make this appear as if it is the Councils themselves who are trying to help cash-strapped residents reduce their monthly Council Tax bill, as opposed to being forced to by Central Government.

In addition, one of our researchers recollects Mr Pickles actual announcement when it was reported by one of the more respected national newspapers, possibly The Independent's sister paper, the i - roughly a month ago.

If our researcher remembers correctly, Mr Pickles was frustrated that under the current Council Tax scheme, residents can request to pay their Council Tax over 12 months instead of the more usual 10 months; however in order to do this the residents had to prove to the Council that they were suffering financial hardship. Whilst the number of requests had increased, there was a significant proportion of these requests being rejected.

Mr Pickles therefore decided, to help Council Tax payers with their finances, that he would force Councils to allow residents to pay over 12 months instead of 10 by simply asking, without having to prove financial hardship.

Our researcher therefore questions why the MEN did not simply state the Greater Manchester Councils were being forced into this change, as opposed to potentially giving the misleading impression that it was indeed the Councils who are doing this themselves?

Our researcher also noted that the MEN reported, whilst the Tory-controlled Trafford Council will allow residents to apply for this change upto Friday 15th March - presumably by which time its residents will have received their Council Tax Bill for 2013/2014; the Labour-controlled Oldham Council has set a cut-off date of 22nd February - presumably well before the Council Tax Bill lands on their residents door-mat.

Our researcher therefore questions Oldhams Councils logic for this deadline and whether Oldham Council will notify all its residents well before the deadline that this facility is available, or whether it will 'keep it 'quiet' in the hope that its residents will not ask until it is too late and then say "no?"

Update:  When our contributor pointed out that this was not being done by the Councils 'off their own backs' but being ordered to along with highlighting that Oldham Council was setting an unreasonnable deadline and querying whether they would be notifying all their residents of the scheme, the MEN has blocked our contributor from any other postings !!!

We have to ask, is this because the MEN dislikes anything negative being said about the Greater Manchester Councils or are they running scared from the success of Choughworld?