Minutes:
Councillor O Temple
Given that the Council has equipped its refuse collection vehicles with cameras, when could they be installed in the Council Chamber to allow the public to watch meetings of the Council via the Council’s website?
Councillor J Brown, Portfolio Holder for Corporate Services thanked Councillor Temple for his question and provided a response.
Following the Council meeting on the 24th July 2013, a working group had been set up with each group on the Council invited to send a representative. Also in attendance were officers from ICT and from Corporate Communications. The working group comprised of Councillors Brown, Martin, Hart, Dearden, R Bell, Shuttleworth and Stelling.
The aim of the group was to explore the feasibility of using a webcam to film Council meetings. The general view of the working group was that in the interests of transparency, it was desirable to enable webcasting, provided it was possible to do so at a reasonable cost.
The potential cost of both a turnkey solution and one developed in-house were explored. A turn-key solution would have cost in the region of £15,000 for one year and in the region of £54,000 allowing for a discount for advance payment for five years. An in-house solution was estimated to cost no less because of the resource implications of servicing any system and carrying out video editing. Neither solution would have covered other meetings of the Council such as Cabinet and Committees.
The Head of Legal and Democratic Services presented a report to the Council on 23 July 2014 on the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 in anticipation of the obligation upon Councils to allow those attending meetings of the Council, Cabinet and Committees to record all but exempted items. The report appended a protocol which was approved by Council.
Therefore in the light of these new Regulations, the protocol and the financial constraints upon the Council the working group agreed that it seemed unnecessary for the Council to incur expenditure broadcasting its meetings. There had been no changes to the law or costs of providing a system that would necessitate a review of this position.
Councillor Temple responded that costs had fallen. The Council had installed 384 cameras in refuse collection vehicles which could observe the performance of the County’s citizens, yet it could not find the funds to install a system in the Council Chamber to allow the public to view Council meetings. He asked if the public would view this as an economic decision or a political one.
Councillor Brown advised that a written response would be provided to Councillor Temple.