Munich mayor responds to councillors' request to review city print centres

Munich's Lord Mayor, Dominik Krause, has responded to a request from city councillors to examine the print centres run by the city administration. The councillors want the centres reviewed for cost-effectiveness, digitalisation and use of resources. The request was submitted on 23 July 2025 by members of the SPD group and the Greens – Rosa Liste – Volt group. It asked the administration to list the usage, costs and benefits of the printing lines in city departments and municipal enterprises, and to consider merging them or using external print providers to save money. The mayor answered by letter, saying the matter falls under the day-to-day business of the administration.

According to the reply, a survey found high-performance production systems in use at it@M, the Directorate's City Chancellery, the Building Department and the Social Services Department. The City Chancellery acts as a typesetting, graphics, printing, copying and bookbinding service for the whole administration, producing brochures, flyers, posters, council papers and meeting invitations. It@M focuses on mass mailings such as standard letters, while the Building Department also has printers for large-format plans. The equipment was procured through individual tenders and is rented. All of these contracts run until the second half of 2028, with the earliest expiring in August and the latest in November 2028.

The departments for Urban Planning and Building Regulations, Health, Municipal Affairs, Culture and Mobility each use individual high-performance devices rented under a framework contract for multifunction devices. These are used for council papers, smaller print runs and, in some cases, large-scale scanning. The framework contract was extended in 2022 until 31 March 2029 on otherwise unchanged terms.

In both cases the city pays a monthly basic rental fee per device plus a charge per page, with different rates for black and white and colour. Scanning is covered by the basic fee. The contracts do not allow devices to be returned early, so the basic rent remains payable until the contracts end, although variable costs fall when less is printed. The City Treasury and the District Administration Department each use their own envelope-stuffing machine. The card printer at the Department of Labour and Economic Development is mainly used to print around 400 access passes for the Oktoberfest.

The mayor's reply states that the way the city handles paper has already changed considerably in recent years, and that this trend will continue. The number of pages printed in departments is clearly falling. The reasons given are ongoing digitalisation and a mix of office, home and mobile working since the coronavirus pandemic. The mayor has also asked all departments to avoid paper wherever possible. In addition, the electronic file system is being rolled out across the city, and part of that project involves digitising incoming external post.