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Question from: County Councillor Iain McIntosh Subject: Streaming Council meetings
Question:
In July this year, the Council Leader Cllr James Gibson Watt made a claim publicly through the press that many Council meetings were not being streamed live due to insufficient funds within the Council budget. This was reported here - https://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/20279478.powys-council-leader-not-enough-money-stream-meetings/. Cllr Gibson-Watt went on to blame the cuts on the previous administration, that he did not know about this until people started complaining and, that he was trying to sort the issue out as quickly as he can.
Today (1st September 2022) the press has reported that, following a freedom of information (FOI) request costing considerable council taxpayer money, the claims made by the Leader were in fact not true. https://nation.cymru/news/decision-to-stop-streaming-most-powys-committee-meetings-live-online-made-by-senior-council-staff-foi-reveals/.
According to the FOI request, the decision to stop broadcasting certain Council meetings was not made until May 26th 2022, after the Council elections, when the new Liberal Democrat and Labour administration were controlling the authority. Therefore, no such decision was ever made by the previous administration. Furthermore, no proposals were ever put forward as part of the budget to reduce costs set aside to deliver live broadcasts of Council meetings, and the decision to stop live streaming was in fact made by executive management team members.
Can the leader therefore please;
Minutes: Response by the Cabinet Member:
Thank you for your question at any time and for the opportunity it has given me to correct your misunderstanding of the position.
When I was asked about the budget to allow all of the Council’s Committees to be streamed live, I was correct in saying that the Budget proposed by the previous administration and approved by full Council, including your good self, did not allow for the live webcasting of all committees.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Council was able to live stream committee meetings using Teams Live at no cost to the Council, but without the facility for simultaneous translation into the Welsh language. The need to reintroduce a Welsh translation facility and the need to introduce hybrid meetings for the AGM to accommodate members who want to attend meetings in person and those who wish to participate remotely, resulted in officers taking the decision to use Zoom and to pay a third party provider to allow hybrid meetings to be streamed live. You will be aware that this Administration was not formed until after the AGM on 26th May 2022.
The budget set by the previous administration does not provide for all hybrid committee meetings to be streamed live. I can confirm that there will continue to be live broadcasting of all meetings that were so broadcast pre-covid (ie Council and Cabinet) as that is precisely what the Council is doing. All meetings using Zoom are recorded and uploaded onto the web, usually within hours of the meeting ending and at worst within 24 hours.
I can re-assure you and other members that this Administration is taking, and will continue to take, all strategic decisions in consultation with advice received from officers.
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