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Chairmans Report

by the Rt Hon Lord Wakeham

1996 was an important year for the Press Complaints Commission - one in which self regulation by the industry and the standing of the PCC among politicians and public both strengthened and deepened. As this Annual Report sets out in detail, significant progress was made across a broad range of fronts.

We dealt with more complaints than ever before - a sure sign that the public not only knows about the PCC and its processes but also has confidence in the Commission to deliver results

In dealing with this record number of complaints, we continued rigorously to act in a quasi judicial manner - employing procedures fair to everyone, considering the evidence and interpreting the Code in a robust common sense way. As a result, the Commission's adjudications continue to carry weight - setting benchmarks by which editors now, as a matter of routine, judge what is acceptable and what is not.

We continued to sharpen the teeth of the Commission, with the vigorous support of the industry by seeing that adherence to the Code of Practice is increasingly being written into the contracts of employment of newspaper and magazine editors.

We produced new standards of service targets by introducing a Complainant's Charter to ensure that we offer the best possible, and most easily accessible, service to members of the public.

In association with the industry's Code of Practice Committee, we continued to tackle key problem areas - most notably in 1996 the issue of cash payments for witnesses in criminal trials. We also sought to define more strictly and precisely the grounds on which a public interest defence would be tested by the Commission.

Crucially, we did all this with the unstinting support of the industry - without which self regulation would surely fail. No newspaper has failed to print a critical adjudication of the PCC. No newspaper has sought to justify a story other than strictly in terms of the Code.

The publication of this Report coincides with the start of a new government. Fresh issues are on the agenda - the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, data protection, freedom of information. In some ways, at the heart of each of them is that crucial balancing act performed by the PCC - and enshrined in the Code of Practice it upholds; reconciling the public's right to know with the legitimate expectation of individuals for privacy.

With the progress we have made in the last two years in strengthening self regulation, I believe that the Press Complaints Commission is now in an unrivalled position to show the way in some of those areas.

In doing so, I am fully aware that there remains much still to do. Complacency is the enemy of effective self regulation. I therefore hope - and expect - that our Annual Report next year will chart further palpable progress in the key tasks we have set ourselves: serving the public and continuing to ratchet up ethical standards of journalism across the board. In these tasks, I know I have the full support of the industry - national newspapers, regional and local newspapers, and magazines - in continuing to make a success of effective self regulation.

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