To approve the introduction of webcasting of meetings of the Council.

31.1           The report of the Executive Director: Resources, circulated at Pages No. 105-108, asked Members to consider a proposal for the webcasting of Council meetings.

31.2           In presenting the report, the Lead Member for Corporate Governance advised that this matter had last been considered in December 2022 and, at that time, it had been decided not to proceed with the introduction of webcasting. In his view, this had given the impression of the Council not moving with the times as well as not opening itself up to proper scrutiny from the public.  The introduction of webcasting would be more transparent, improve scrutiny and engage residents in what the Council did in its meetings. He was pleased that the tender exercise was in place and ready to go if the Council decided to go ahead this time. The Lead Member indicated that he had advised Officers of three additional things which he would like to see included as part of the system 1) that the system would broadcast all meetings and, where confidential matters were dealt with, there was a clear explanation to anyone watching of what was happening; 2) that the system could be used by outside groups so other organisations using the room could make use of the equipment on a commercial basis; and 3) that a recording was made of the meetings that could be used by the communications team and was kept available for as long into the future as possible for anyone to watch. On that basis he proposed that the Council approved, in principle, to introduce webcasting and that the funding and tender exercise be discussed in confidential business with a final decision being made when Members had been advised of that information. In response to a query regarding the procedure, the Corporate Director confirmed that it would be feasible to make an ‘in principle’ decision subject to the financing now and then defer the conversation about finances to be considered in confidential business. A Member proposed, and it was seconded, that the whole item should be taken in confidential business but he later withdrew that proposal. In response to a query as to whether the original proposal on the papers had already been amended, the Corporate Director confirmed that the proposal was that, subject to the Council being satisfied as to the financial implications to be discussed in separate business at this meeting, a decision be taken in principle to introduce webcasting – this was the first proposal and therefore was not an amendment. The recommendation in the report was a recommendation only not a proposal. In respect of the fact that there were no members of the public observing the meeting, the Corporate Director confirmed that there being no public present was irrelevant to the financial information needing to be discussed in confidential business. If that information was debated in public, it would be minuted as such and that could prejudice the tender process.  This was the reason the financial information should be debated in private. She reiterated the proposal that, subject to the Council being satisfied as to the financial implications to be discussed in separate business at this meeting, a decision be taken in principle to introduce webcasting.

31.3           The Lead Member advised that the report indicated that the funding was available within budget should the Council decide to go ahead with webcasting so the decision in principle seemed to him to be straightforward as Members should be either in favour of it or not and there seemed to be no reason why that decision could not be made in open business. Several Members felt the decision would have to be one in principle and subject to the consideration of finances since the Council did not currently have the financial information it needed to be able to confirm that the funding for webcasting was available. The Corporate Director agreed this would have to be the case, as had been advised earlier in the meeting. A Member suggested that he had no issue with webcasting being introduced as it enabled many more people to watch the Council’s meetings and the recordings could be used by Councillors to confirm what they had said at meetings if it came into question; however, he questioned how long the recordings would be retained for. In response, the Executive Director: Resources and S151 advised that a protocol would have to be put into place and that would include the length of time the recordings would be retained for; the general principle would be to keep them as long as possible but the protocol would be developed should Members decide to support the introduction of webcasting. Another Member advised that she had recently watched a webcast of a Council meeting in another authority and had noted that the voting came up on screen and she wondered if this was something that could be included in the Council’s specification. She also questioned if the introduction of webcasting would be a step towards hybrid meetings. In response, she was advised that electronic voting was common among webcasting systems so it was something that could be considered. In terms of hybrid Committee meetings, this was not currently permitted by law in England.

31.4           A Member expressed her delight at this issue being brought back to Council at the earliest opportunity. She had concerns that many residents could not afford to travel to the offices, due to the Borough being so large and spread out over a wide area and public transport from many rural areas being poor, therefore she welcomed the opportunity for those people to be able to see the Council making decisions via the web – she hoped this would result in better engagement from residents in local democracy. Another Member indicated that he was all for modern technology and believed in transparency and people seeing what the Council did but he had concerns now, as he had in December, that the cost of living crisis was such that this kind of money would be better directed at helping people that could not afford to feed themselves rather than on a webcasting system for the Council. He also noted that the Council had made its most important decisions in February on Council Tax setting and the budget and no one had attended to watch the meeting so he wondered how many people would watch webcasts of the meetings. A Member shared the concerns expressed about the cost of living crisis but felt there was no better time to be transparent and engage in different ways with residents.

31.5           A Member asked that the ‘question be put’. The Corporate Director reiterated the proposal that, subject to the Council being satisfied as to the financial implications to be discussed in separate business at this meeting, a decision be taken in principle to introduce webcasting. Having been proposed and seconded, a recorded vote was requested and, upon receiving the appropriate level of support, voting was recorded as follows:

31.6           Accordingly, it was

RESOLVED          That, subject to the Council being satisfied as to the financial implications to be discussed in separate business at this meeting, a decision is taken in principle to introduce webcasting.