Government print work continues to dry up as the Federal Government angles its communication spending away from print into digital in an effort to balance the budget.

While it would not reveal its figures, the Finance Department confirmed to ProPrint that a series of measures in the past two years have resulted in a ‘considerable reduction’ in non-campaign print advertising expenditure and volume, and its reports show a significant decline in print campaign advertising spending and huge digital growth.

Canberra printers are already nervous that next week’s Federal Budget, which is expected to make significant across-the-board cuts, will further slash available government work and say they have definitely noticed significant declines in recent years.

[Related: More government work news]

A Finance Department spokesperson says the Non‑Campaign Recruitment Advertising Policy, adopted in July 2012, ‘has resulted in a shift in the use of media channel from print/press to online, as online media is significantly cheaper than print media’.

The policy mandates the use of online advertising for all government recruitment, bans ads from national newspapers, limits the size of ads in local press, and says all ads must be in black and white only.

Changes to the Australian Public Service Commission Interim Recruitment Direction last October has also ‘resulted in a considerable reduction in the advertising of recruitment opportunities across the APS’, and the Reduced Press Advertising for Open Approaches to Market policy from July 2013, which ‘requires agencies subject to the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 to place tender advertising via AusTender only’ unless its chief executive makes an exception.

The government also announced a five per cent reduction in overall print spending in the Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2012‑13, including the printing of reports and other non-advertising communication, cutting $6m out of the printing industry.

PIAA chief executive Bill Healey says the government is being short-sighted in its haste to simply cut down on print spending and rush to digital instead of developing a holistic communications plan.

“It was an ill-informed decision to cut print spending by so much,” he says.

“Yes there were excessive costs, but the policies reflect a simplistic understanding of the potential savings and the importance of printed communication to the Australian community.”

Healey says many of the savings from efforts to only make reports available in pdf format online do not end up being realised anyway because reports are frequently printed out on office printers on an ad-hoc basis, which could be done much cheaper and efficiently with a commercial printer.

He says the community still wants government communication to reach it in print, not just online.

“There are still a lot of people, particularly the elderly, who don’t have the internet or aren’t computer savvy,” he says.

“Another example is when Tourism Australia wanted to move much of its communication online, but visitor centres around Australia are crying out for brochures to give to tourists as the most convenient way of finding out about an area.

“You’re not seeing MPs reduce their use of direct mail and campaign signs either, so they clearly see the value of print in communication with voters.”

Healey says the government needs to work with the industry to develop a workable communications plan that gets the ‘best bang for its buck’, incorporating things like direct mail and short run digital printing.

“The government’s approach requires a lot of thought and there’s a broad issue of making people aware that print is not dead and that you can actually save money by using it,” he says.

“There will continue to be a need for print-based communication now and into the future.”

[Related: Printers nervous of budget cuts]

Government printing cuts come along with the news that it has dumped long-standing print-friendly media agency UM from its master media contract.

UM, which held the contract for 11 years, is to be replaced by Japanese-owned Mitchell & Partners, which is forthcoming about digital as an emerging marketing medium but does not advertise its stance on print.

Mitchells’ alliance partner, Adcorp – understood to be managing the non-campaign side of the government deal – argues that the future of advertising is digital, stating on its website that “newspapers, magazines, television and radio have been usurped by the PC, smartphone, iPad and tablets, and now, smart television.”

Parent company Aegis Global says its Australian clients spent $3,460m on newspaper advertising in the first half of FY2014 – falling 8.5 per cent from last year but still making up 25.2 per cent of total expenditure across its four Australian companies; Mitchell, Carat, Huckleberry and digital-only Vizeum.

UM is known for its innovative print advertising, winning awards for its Fast Front Pages campaign which lifted revenues for News Limited by $96m in 2013.

The campaign displayed the morning’s newspapers on 370 printed billboards across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The billboards went up at the crack of dawn each day for eight weeks, with outsourced printers sharing the 370-poster-a-day job – each taking five minutes to print and installed by teams from 3am.

For the first time in two years News Corp increased its newspaper circulation by between nine and 10 per cent, and newsstands near the campaign sites saw sales jump 25 per cent.

Print is increasingly taking a back seat to digital and other media in government campaign advertising, as Finance Department reports show declining spending for press and magazines and soaring digital investment.

The government spent $17.5m in press advertising and $3.7m in magazine advertising in the 2013 financial year, representing 12.6 and 2.7 per cent of the total $138.9m spend – down from 16.8 and 2.7 per cent in 2012 and 20.4 and 5.4 per cent in 2011. Out of home dropped by 20 per cent from $5.1m in 2012 to $4m in 2013.

In contrast, digital spending rocketed to $29.1m at 21 per cent, beating press for the first time. It was up from 14.7 per cent in 2012 and 13.9 per cent in 2011.

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