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General Question – 18th December 2008 |
Under Standing Order 14, Councillor Mrs E. Bell asked the following question:
“I understood that audio recording of council meetings was to be introduced commencing with the last planning meeting, however I understand that no announcement was made at the meeting. As it would be unethical to record a meeting without external speakers being made aware, can I assume that the meeting wasn't recorded, and if so can you give me a timetable for when these recordings will be made and when they will be available on the council website for residents to hear?”
The Portfolio Holder for Communication and Engagement, Councillor A.P. Hirst, responded as follows:
As stated at the last Council Meeting on 30 October 2008, we are currently looking at the feasibility of giving greater access to a wider audience to Committee meetings, possibly by providing web casting which will enable Members of the public to view and hear Committee meetings via our web site. Investigations are still at the preliminary stage and we are in the process of looking at the various packages available on the market and associated costs of these. If this formally is adopted, then we will, of course, have to inform people attending the meetings that they are being recorded. Obviously, we would not want to spend much money on the recording process as the interest may be of course limited, so we are investigating the most cost effective way of doing this.
You will be aware that we, inadvertently, have a very limited recording facility through our camera system used at the Planning Committee meetings. However, a quality reproduction of the Planning Committee meeting did not take place and we will, of course, be making an appropriate announcement before the relevant Committee, should we find a cost effective way of doing this in the near future.