Who will be running the Local Democracy Reporter contracts until 2027?

BBC announces the winners of the latest tendering process for 165 reporters

Four new companies have won contracts to run some of the Local Democracy Reporter contracts in parts of the UK.

Baylis Media, Tindle Newspapers, Highland News & Media, and Northampton-based community radio station NLive are being awarded contracts to employ Local Democracy Reporters from July 1.

It is the third time LDR contracts have been put out to tendering since the scheme, funded by the BBC, was launched.

In total, 15 different media organisations from across the UK have been awarded or re-awarded at least one of 118 contracts following completion of the award process. The new contract period will initially run for a two-a-half-year period to the end of the current BBC Charter.

Reach remains the largest partner in the scheme after being awarded 54 contracts to employ 83 reporters — four more than it currently employs. It added a contract to cover Hackney, Camden and Islington, previously held by Citizen News and Media, and will also take over providing stories about the Greater London Authority and the London Mayor from the London Standard.

Reach has also successfully regained the contracts for Nottinghamshire and Devon, which it had lost to NottsTV and Radio Exe respectively in the last re-tendering.

The company will hand over the contract for Somerset to Newsquest, and Tower Hamlets in London to hyperlocal operator Social Spider, which successfully picked up other contracts in parts of London from Newsquest during the last re-tendering in 2001. It now has three contracts.

Newsquest’s number of LDRs rises from 28.5 to 36 after it picked up contracts in areas such as Oxfordshire, Southampton, North Yorkshire Mid Ulster and Clackmannanshire from National World. Its contracts for Powys and Shropshire have gone to Tindle Newspapers and National World respectively, while Baylis Media will take over Slough from Newsquest also.

National World’s LDR numbers go from 35 at the time of the last tendering — it had since handed back Northamptonshire — to 24. Iliffe Media has taken over the Hertfordshire contract previously held by National World.

Iliffe increased the share of Local Democracy Reporters it will employ from four to seven. DC Thomson will also manage four contracts from July onwards.

Radio Manx and Shetland News, retaining one contract each, completed the list of successful bidders.

The only contract to ever have to be retendered after a supplier closed dow — the Lincolnshire contract once held by The Lincolnite — has been successfully retained by a partnership of Reach and Iliffe, the pair which stepped in to keep the service going in Lincolnshire previously.

The Local Democracy Reporters are funded by the BBC as part of its Charter commitment, but are employed by hyperlocal, local and regional news organisations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Local Democracy Reporters cover local council meetings, public service organisations and other democratic institutions.

Jason Gibbins, Editor, Local News Partnerships said: “The result of this process means that every part of the country will be covered by a Local Democracy Reporter. The addition of four new contract holders is to be celebrated, and we look forward to them joining existing contract holders in their continued efforts to scrutinise the work of councils and other local public bodies across the UK.

This has been the first procurement process since 2021, and the contracts will run from July 1 to the end of 2027.

Jason Gibbins added: “We would like to thank all organisations who took the time to submit applications.

“It was a very competitive and robust process, highlighting the exceptional standards delivered by regional news outlets across all areas of the UK.”

The Local Democracy Reporting Service supports journalism in the local news sector by funding the network of 165 journalists employed by commercial newsrooms.

Since the scheme’s inception at the start of 2018, it has produced more than more than 470,000 stories for publication by partner newsrooms.