Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Head of Legal and Democratic Services and Monitoring Officer which informed the Committee of any development in relation to the Local Government (LGA)’s Debate Not Hate campaign (for copy see file of Minutes).

The Apprentice Solicitor was in attendance to present the report and informed the Committee that since the report was published, she had attended a follow up workshop in which she spoke about the ongoing work the Council were doing to improve the Social Media Toolkit. She then advised the Committee that the Council had been asked to participate in further discussions with the Lead Researcher on the project covering the Council’s Social Media Toolkit.

Councillor Tinsley commented on the recent media coverage on the use of TikTok on UK parliamentary devices and the next step would be to move to local government devices. He stated that this opened up the bigger question of the use of devices for social media that they needed to be aware of.

The Head of Legal and Democratic Services and Monitoring Officer responded that the Head of Digital Services and her team were looking at the guidance that had prompted the government to take its stance it had in relation to TikTok. The Council were also working on some guidance for Members on the use of Council resources.

Resolved: (i) That the report be noted.

(ii) That that the Head of Legal and Democratic Services submits a case study to the LGA in consultation with the Chair of the Standards Committee.

(iii) That the request that the Head of Legal and Democratic Services circulate the Councillors Guide to handling harassment, abuse and intimidation and make it available on the Members portal be agreed.

(iv) That the Social Media Toolkit is amened to incorporate the recommendations from the ‘Civility and Respect Guide to Social Media’.

(v) That the Head of Legal and Democratic Services circulate a link to the revised Social Media Toolkit once it had been updated.