Agenda item

The Civic Affairs Committee supported option 4, as set out in the report, and AGREED to maintain the existing arrangement of not installing, contracting or providing any specific facility or system for the Council to itself record its public meetings.

The Civic Affairs Committee considered a report which provided Members with an overview of the technical options available to facilitate the filming or recording of the Council’s public meetings.  Options included:

·         contracting a third party supplier and that webcasting be introduced for some or all of the Council’s public meetings, so that the authority could film and stream its proceedings live on its website;

·         internally filming or recording some or all of the Council’s public meetings, so that the video and audio feed could be relayed to other parts of the building as an overflow arrangement in circumstances whereby the public gallery could not accommodate the number of people wishing to attend;

·         internally filming some or all of the Council’s public meetings and providing a link to the footage on its website after the meeting had been held, with the footage not being live.  This option could also provide a video or audio broadcast relayed to other parts of the building to facilitate an overflow arrangement;

·         not installing, contracting or providing any specific facility or system for the filming or recording of the Council’s public meetings.

The following points were made by Members during discussion:

·         the public now had the right to film meetings themselves, so the Council should retain its existing arrangements.  Members of the public did already film meetings, with the Greater Cambridge City Deal Executive Board and Joint Assembly cited as examples;

·         it would be difficult for the Council to choose which meetings it decided to film should any arrangements to facilitate this be put in place;

·         it was difficult to justify the additional costs and officer time that would be required to introduce the recording or filming of meetings;

·         the public appetite for watching Council meetings online was difficult to determine.  A Member had searched on YouTube for a recent public meeting from another authority which had only received 50 ‘hits’.  With such low viewing figures it would be difficult to justify the capital costs required;

·         it was a matter of time before local authorities would be made to film their meetings, so the Council should introduce filming or recording at the earliest opportunity;

·         a recent meeting of the Cambourne Police Panel was put forward as an example where filming took place and was live-streamed.  If Police Panels could ensure that their meetings were recorded or filmed then the District Council should make the same provision;

·         the Council should not rely on members of the public turning up to meetings to film them and should make its own arrangements;

·         it would be preferable for the Council to have an official recording of meetings to signpost people to, rather than relying on a version that had been filmed from another third party.  A problem with other people filming meetings and the Council not having its own version was that approach was that the external person would have full editorial control.  The third option set out in the report was therefore a reasonable compromise;

·         the Council should be open and transparent and the recording or filming of its meetings was a way of demonstrating this;

·         some people in the district struggled to physically attend meetings and would welcome the opportunity to observe meetings online.

Councillor Deborah Roberts proposed option four set out in the report, to maintain the existing arrangement of not installing, contracting or providing any specific facility or system for the Council to itself record its public meetings.  Councillor Ray Manning seconded the proposal.

Voting on the proposal, with 9 votes in favour and 2 votes against, the Civic Affairs Committee supported option four, as set out in the report, and AGREED to maintain the existing arrangement of not installing, contracting or providing any specific facility or system for the Council to itself record its public meetings.

Councillors Sebastian Kindersley and Bridget Smith requested that their votes against the proposal be recorded in the minutes.