History of the press COMPLAINTS COMMISSION Timeline

A press standards board of finance modelled on the self regulatory system established by the advertising industry in 1974 was established and charged with raising a levy upon the newspaper and periodical industry's to finance the commission.

During the 1980’s a small number of publications failed in the view of many to observe the basic ethics of journalism. This in turn reinforced a belief among many members of parliament that the press council which had lost the confidence of some in the press was not a sufficiently effective body.

The government appointed a departmental committee under David Callcutt QC to consider this matter his task was “to consider what measures (whether legislative or otherwise) are needed to give further protection to individual privacy from the activities of the press and improve recourse against the press for the individual citizen”. Callcutt’s report was published in June 1990.

The press responded with vigour to the report and acted with great speed and cooperation to set up an independent press complaints commission at the beginning of 1991.

Began with the creation of a voluntary press council in 1993 which aimed to maintain high ethical standards of journalism and to promote press freedom.

In 1995 the then government recognised the achievements of the PCC in making effective press self regulation in its white paper – “Privacy and Media Intrusion”.

In 2003 House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select committee concluded that “ Overall, standards of press behaviour, the Code and the performance of the Press Complaints commission have improved over the last decade”.

A further enquiry into self regulation of the press by the select committee in 2007 concluded that the system of self regulation should be maintained for the press, and there was no case for a statutory regulator.

In December 2007, the then DCMS minister Margaret Hodge MP said the following: The government strongly supports freedom of speech and a free press. It is therefore appropriate that there should be a system of self regulation. We are generally satisfied that the press complaints commission’s code of practice is both adequate and appropriate for its purpose. We therefore have no intention of bringing forward any new proposals”.

Speaking to the press Gazette at the Press Awards in April 2008 when he was leader of the opposition David Cameron MP stated: “We’ve no plans to change self-regulation. I think the PCC has settled down and the system is now working better than it once did. But that’s not to say that there isn’t an on-going need to make sure the press acts responsibly”.

A 2009 Select Committee report into “Press Standards, Privacy and Libel” stated that “self-regulation of the press is greatly preferable to statutory regulation, and should continue”.

Following the recommendation Sir Brian Leveson made in his Report published in November 2012, the magazine and newspaper industries have been creating a new, self-regulatory body – The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), in accordance with the Leveson principals.

The Press Complaints Commission closed on 8th September 2014 and has been replaced by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).