The Cabinet may consider items of an urgent nature on functions falling within their responsibilities where special circumstances apply. Where the item relates to a key decision, the agreement of the Chairman of the Overview Select Committee must have been sought on both the subject of the decision and the reasons for the urgency. Such decisions shall not be subject to the call-in procedure as set out in the Scrutiny Procedure Rules at Part 6 of the Council’s Constitution.
Decision:
The Cainet
RESOLVED – That
1. the update provided be noted; and
2. the further actions the officers are taking be supported to:-
a. cease the live webcasting of meetings and instead publish the live recording of meetings for ‘on demand’ viewing the following day until an alternative solution has been identified; and
b. continue to explore a procurement exercise to meet the Council’s future webcasting needs.
In accordance with Part 3 (Responsibility for Functions), Section 2.0, paragraph 2.3, this decision shall not be subject to the call-in procedure.
Minutes:
The Chairman confirmed that there was one urgent item for the Cabinet to consider which was being presented at his request to allow Cabinet Members to be updated on the actions being taken to respond to serious concerns raised with the recent webcasting of Council meetings.
The Group Head of Council Advice & Monitoring Officer was then invited to present this report. She provided the background to the issue in that the Council’s webcasting service was provided by Auditel UK Limited and that this company also provided and serviced the sound system in the Council Chamber.
Cabinet was reminded of its decision taken earlier in July 2019 for Officers to precure an agreement with Auditel to webcast Full Council and Development Control Committee meetings for the next year at a one-off total cost. Part of that report recommended the establishment of an Officer Group to examine future webcasting needs and associated costs so that a further report could be brought back to Cabinet once this work had been concluded.
The report today was being presented as urgent to allow the Cabinet to be updated as the webcasting service had not been performing well and Members needed to be made aware of the impact this was having before the Council’s next cycle of meetings in January 2020 commenced. The report set out the meetings where webcasting had failed, and it detailed further issues that the Officer team had since escalated with Auditel’s senior management team as a result of the breakdown of sound and presentation equipment in early November that had affected a number of meetings. An action plan had been developed to progress with Auditel.
The difficulty that the Council faced was that the existing system was currently all that was available for webcasting until the procurement exercise was concluded in Spring 2020. Members were informed that any new system would require a considerable budget. The view of the Officer team was that if Members wished to limit the risk of future embarrassment from the webcasting failing that future live webcasts should be ceased with immediate effect. The system would still allow meetings to be recorded and published the following day. It was emphasised that this element of the system was currently proving to be reliable and so the Cabinet was asked if this was something that it wished to consider asking Officers to action.
In terms of the procurement exercise, the Officer team were working with current suppliers at this pre-tender stage so that once likely costs and implications were available and had been identified a further report would be brought back to Cabinet for consideration.
In discussing the report, the Chairman outlined that the problem was that the previous administration had not insisted that meetings be webcast and so the system in place had not been properly tested until late in 2018 leaving no time to adequately undertake field testing in proper operating conditions. Looking at the Officer Group’s proposed cause of action which was to delay webcasting until the next day, it seemed sensible to take this cause of action until the issues had been resolved. The mediation between the Council and the supplier was noted with the Cabinet expressing its disappointment with the recent performance of the webcasting service. To avoid future embarrassment in the event of future failures of the system it was clear that there was little alternative but to cease the live webcasting of meetings until an alternative solution had been identified through the current procurement exercise that the Officer team was presently undertaking.
Following some further discussion, the Cabinet agreed with this approach in that the Council would continue to live record meetings and then publish the webcast for an ‘on demand’ viewing the following day.
Having thanked the Officer team for their ongoing work and commitment to working with the supplier to resolve the issues, the Cabinet
RESOLVED – That
(1) the update provided be noted; and
(2) the live webcasting of meetings cease until an alternative solution has been found through the current procurement exercise.
The Cabinet supported the recommendations in the report and then confirmed its decision as per Decision Notice C/019/091219, a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of the Minutes.