Council save 82 per cent on printing costs

COUNCILS have saved hundreds of thousands of pounds on printing costs during the pandemic, new figures show.

Staffordshire Moorlands District Council spent £4,330 on printing between April 2020 and February 2021, compared to £24,502 in 2019/20 – a massive 82 per cent reduction.

Over the same period, Staffordshire County Council saw its printing spend fall by 48 per cent, from £706,849 to £367,433.

The figures, obtained by the Taxpayers’ Alliance through freedom of information requests, include the cost of paper, ink, printers and servicing.

Local authorities, like most organisations, have made much greater use of home working and virtual meetings since the start of the pandemic, with many offices left empty for much of this period.

While this would account for most of the spending reduction last year, the figures for our councils suggest that the amount being spent was already falling. Staffordshire’s spending had fallen from £1.15 million to £706,849 in the year before the pandemic, while Stoke-ontrent’s had gone down from £1.18 million to £965,000.

Harry Fone, grassroots campaign manager at the TPA, welcomed the savings and called on authorities to ‘lock in’ the spending reductions.

He said: “Councils across the country should be congratulated for these printing savings.

“Taxpayers are fed up with their council tax bills shooting up, but Covid-19 may reveal some simple savings which can relieve financial pressures and offer environmental benefits too.

“Town hall bosses must lock in these reductions for the long term, and pass the advantages of staying paperless onto hard-pressed residents.”

Local authorities across the UK spent £41.6million on printing between April 2020 and February 2021, a decline of nearly £32million, or 43 per cent.