Following the rejection of the PressBof’s request for a Royal Charter the Privy Council is set to consider the one that resulted from the cross-party agreement in March. DCMS just published a revised version of that Royal Charter and the team at Inforrm examined the revisions. Below is an excerpt from their analysis of the changes and their implications. 

The DCMS has published the Final Draft of the Royal Charter on Self-Regulation of the Press along with an Explanatory Note. There are a number of “technical amendments” dealing, in particular, with the role of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and the application of the Charter to Scotland.

There is one substantive amendment to the “Scheme of Recognition” in Schedule 2 to the Charter.  This now includes a provision relating to “cyclical reviews” by the Board to the effect that where the Board

“determines the requirement to provide an arbitral process causes serious financial harm to subscribers who publish only on a local or regional basis, 
the Recognition Panel may allow recognition to continue on the basis that such subscribers may, but need not, participate in the Regulator’s arbitral process”.

This means that if the local press fears of a “flood of arbitration claims” turns out to be justified (something which is, for reasons analysed previously, highly unlikely) they would be allowed to “opt out” of the arbitral arm of the self-regulator.

There have been two substantive amendments to the recognition criteria set out in Schedule 3 to the Charter.

First, the “recognition criterion” relating to the standards code has been replaced by an entirely new provision.  The provision in the 18 March 2013 Charter was as follows

“The standards code which is the responsibility of the Code Committee, must be approved by the Board or remitted to the Code Committee with reasons. The Code Committee will be appointed by the Board, in accordance with best practices for public appointments, and comprised of equal proportions of independent members, serving journalists (being national or regional journalists, or, where relevant to the membership of the self-regulatory body, local or on-line journalists) and serving editors.  There will be a biennial public consultation by the Code Committee, the results of which must be considered openly with the Board”.

This has been replaced by the following wording

“The standards code must ultimately be the responsibility of, and adopted by, the Board, advised by a Code Committee which may comprise both independent members of the Board and serving editors. Serving editors have an important part to play although not one that is decisive”.

This more closely reflects the wording of Leveson Recommendation 7.  It removes the explicit role for serving journalists but makes the Code the responsibility of the Board, rather than of the Code Committee.

Secondly, Recognition Criterion 22e which requires an arbitration service to operate “under the principle that arbitration should be free for complainants to use” now has a new footnote which provides as follows:

“The principle that arbitration should be free does not preclude the charging of a small administration fee, provided that: (a) the fee is determined by the Regulator and approved by the Board of the Recognition Panel; and (b) the fee is used for the purpose of defraying the cost of the initial assessment of an application and not for meeting the costs of determining an application (including the costs of the arbitration)”.

This means that, contrary to Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations, a “small fee” can be charged for the use of the arbitration service which a recognised regulator should offer.

This is an excerpt of a post that originally appeared on Inforrm blog on 11 October and is re-posted with permission and thanks. This article gives the views of the author, and does not represent the position of the LSE Media Policy Project blog, nor of the London School of Economics.