Jackie Weaver and the new era for council meetings

“Jackie Weaver, you have no authority here!” This immortal line, a gift to a pandemic-weary world, would probably never have been spoken if the lockdown hadn’t forced local councils to meet virtually.

But with lockdowns hopefully a thing of the past, local councils in England have been wrestling with the question of whether they should continue to livestream their sessions.

Despite a return to in-person meetings being required by law from May 7 last year, Nottinghamshire County Council voted last month to spend £437,341 on a plan to revolutionize its virtual meeting systems and make it easier for people come together. online as well as in person.

The council has not released a detailed breakdown of exactly how the money would be spent, but local media reports suggest it would cover wall-mounted screens and people-tracking cameras in meeting rooms.

The BBC understands that new microphones, sockets for councilors to plug in their laptops and asbestos removal to allow the installation of new hardware will also be included.

Nottinghamshire County Council did not respond to a request for comment.

Although the plan was approved, five councilors abstained or voted against it. The episode sums up the question hanging over all English councils at the moment. Live streaming arguably improves public participation in local democracy, but can it continue, and if so, at what cost?

Jackie Weaver, star of the infamous Handforth parish council Zoom meeting that spiraled into chaos and became a viral hit last year, said in January that online council meetings should continue.

“People have a right to see what we do as councillors,” says Cllr Keith Girling of Nottinghamshire County Council, who supports his high-tech upgrade plan.

His colleague on the council, Cllr Kate Foale, who abstained, says online meetings have been a “brilliant” means of involving the public in decision-making, but balks at the proposed sum of more than £400,000.

“To justify spending that kind of money, it didn’t feel right,” she says.

Cllr Girling argues that the new technology will make it easier for multiple meetings to run smoothly, not just those in the main council chamber.

Proponents of hybrid meetings, in which some people are present in one room while others join remotely over the Internet, often point out that additional technical support is sometimes needed to transmit each person’s contributions seamlessly. clear and audible to all attendees.

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In contrast, when everyone logs in individually through a system like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, it can be easier to clearly display the current speaker in view.

One authority that has stopped broadcasting its meetings in person is Eastleigh Town Council in Hampshire. A spokesman tells the BBC that streaming “didn’t work so well” for in-person meetings, but says the council will keep this “open for review”.

But elsewhere, Penrith City Council Cllr Jonathan Davies is a big fan of keeping the flow alive. He says that he makes a point of broadcasting any public meeting he attends, through a camera connected to his smartphone.

“I take that, put it on a tripod in a seat where an audience member would sit and broadcast live,” he explains.

All council meetings across the country should be broadcast digitally, he argues. He even suggests that the BBC could link to broadcasts through a service like iPlayer, not least because it would capture a lot of content for news producers. “You would get your Jackie Weaver moments,” she says.

In reality, digital coverage of council meetings currently varies from place to place. Cllr Joanne Laban at Enfield Council says some meetings are currently broadcast there, while others are not.

“It’s obvious to me that these meetings should be broadcast live,” she says. The council has previously told local media that any meeting can be broadcast if there is a request to do so.

The charity Speakers’ Corner Trust (SCT) published a report last year on the impact virtual council meetings have had on participation in local democracy.

Based on responses from 50 councils that chose to participate, the charity concluded that the results had been largely positive, with increased participation in discussions and increased awareness among the public of what the councils were doing.

“People felt that wherever they were, they could have an opportunity to say something or ask a question,” says SCT Acting President and CEO Louise Third.

But due to current technological disparities in councils across the country, he notes that having access to live meetings online can be highly dependent on where you live.

“We would really push for that balance to be able to give all citizens a voice,” adds Ms Third. That means the opportunity to attend in person if you can’t log in virtually, as well as the provision of online access to ensure maximum participation.

Few councilors have reveled in cyber meetings to the extent that Suffolk County Council’s Cllr Stephen Burroughes has since closed. From his home, he attends four or five online meetings every day, often tuning into two or three simultaneously so he can control both small and larger sessions.

It has meant far fewer trips for attendees in a largely rural area. “We reduced our carbon footprint by 66%, which was pretty amazing,” she says.

He also thinks that public participation has increased. “My email inbox has probably doubled,” and he argues that the government should have allowed English councils to continue to meet virtually.

Unlike many European countries, UK local authorities have relatively little power and funding but are tasked with representing large numbers of people, says Oliver Escobar, a senior lecturer in public policy at the University of Edinburgh.

Live streaming of sessions is more established in other parts of Europe. He says embracing the technology, provided the costs are reasonable, could help communities in England and elsewhere in the UK tackle the many problems they face in the 21st century.

“If we believe there is a need to revitalize and invest in local democracy, then for me digital infrastructure will be part of it.”