Agenda item

Following the reports that were made to Cabinet on 8 July and 9 December 2019, this report feeds back to the Cabinet the findings from the corporate officer group that was set up to examine the future webcasting needs of the Council and associated costs but has been amended to reflect the Council’s current financial position.

The Cabinet

            RESOLVED – That

(1)          In view of the timescales involved for this project, to instruct Officers to extend the existing contract with Auditel, for the webcasting of all public meetings for the next twelve months the cost of which is to be met from existing budgets;

(2)          To note that a further report will be provided to Cabinet setting out the anticipated costs and long-term financial implications of a range of options for webcasting; and

(3)          In the event of physical meetings becoming possible in the next six months which the public are allowed to attend in the Civic Centre, Officers investigate the ongoing use of Zoom and/or the utilisation of the Council Chamber for both Cabinet and the Overview Select Committee to be webcast alongside Full Council and the Development Control Committee.

The Cabinet Member for Technical Services, Councillor Stanley, introduced this item outlining that following the reports that had been made to Cabinet on 8 July and 9 December 2019, this report fed back to Cabinet the findings from the corporate officer group that had been established to examine the future webcasting needs of the Council and associated costs.  This report had been slightly adjusted to reflect the Council’s current financial position as a result of Covid 19  meaning that it would now be necessary to consider a range of options and possibly at different time stages and so a further report would be presented to Cabinet setting out the costs and long-term financial implications of these options for webcasting.

In view of the timescales involved for this work, Cabinet was being asked to instruct Officers to extend the existing contract with Auditel for the webcasting of all public meetings for the next twelve months, the cost of which would be met from existing budgets as the existing contract with Auditel would imminently be expiring.

It was also intended, subject to any future decisions regarding the options for webcasting, that when meetings returned to the Civic Centre with the public being allowed to physically attend, then webcasting would revert back to web-streaming live Full Council and Development Control Committee meetings only.

Councillor Stanley emphasised the fact that the officer group had undertaken a lot of work which had included a soft market testing exercise to understand the technical requirements of upgrading and extending the current webcasting arrangements including the Committee Suite and the key information relating to this had been set out in Section 2.1 of the report.  It was also highlighted that the Committee Services team, ICT and the Senior Estates Surveyor have worked collaboratively with Auditel’s Senior Management Team in escalating and resolving the issues previously reported to this meeting, the result of which has been a much-improved client relationship. 

The Director of Place endorsed the points made by Councillor Stanley and invited questions from Cabinet Members.

Comments from the Cabinet outlined the importance of this report as one of the Council’s long-term objectives was to improve the transparency and accountability of its meetings.  Previously, the equipment installed in the Council Chamber had seen only the Development Control Committee relly sing the equipment for webcasting meetings.  Cabinet endorsed its view that webcasting needed to be widened out and needed to be continued to be used and to reflect the increasing numbers of those who watched the westreams either live or on demand.

It was also acknowledged that the current pandemic had forced the Council to change its focus on how meetings were now ran and as this had worked successfully it was important for the Council to consider options for webcasting moving forward.  In view of this, Councillor Stanley confirmed that he wished to make an amendment to Recommendation (3) to read as follows – additions have been shown using bold and deletions have been shown using strikethrough :

If within the next 6 mnths the public are allowed to attend meetings in the Civic Centre then the webcasting will revert to the Full Council and Development Control Committee meetings only In the event of physical meetings becoming possible in the next six months which the public are allowed to attend in the Civic Centre, Officers investigate the ongoing use of Zoom and/or the utilisation of the Council Chamber for both Cabinet and the Overview Select Committee to be webcast alongside Full Council and the Development Control Committee.

This amendment was seconded by Councillor Oppler.

The Chairman then invited debate on the amendment asking Officers firstly if they could provide any comment on the amendment made. 

As there were no questions from Cabinet Members, the Chairman invited non-Cabinet Members to ask questions.

Questions were asked with regard to the key elements of the draft specification for a fully comprehensive system as had been set out in the report at Section 2.1 in relation to the number of microphones that would be provided and if these would be wireless.

Positive comments were received in relation to the amendment as it was felt that all Council meetings should be webcast.  Councillors were also interested to learn what the viewing figures had been for meetings.  Councillor Stanley confirmed that for Cabinet on 29 April 2020 there had been 354; for Annual Council there had been 379; and for the Littlehampton Regeneration Sub-Committee 65.  This confirmed that there was a considerable difference between the larger Committees compared with smaller Sub-Committees and this was why the amendment to Recommendation 3 had been proposed.

Moving forward Councillors agreed that as it was difficult to antidipate when physical meetings could once again resume, the possibility of being able to look into using a hybrid approach for meetings could resolve a number of issues and most likely save on costs.  It would therefore be interesting to see what other alternatives could be available.

Following some further discussion, the amendment to Recommendation 3 was put to the vote and this was declared carried.

The Cabinet therefore

                        RESOLVED – That

(1)          In view of the timescales involved for this project, to instruct Officers to extend the existing contract with Auditel, for the webcasting of all public meetings for the next twelve months the cost of which is to be met from existing budgets;

(2)          To note that a further report will be provided to Cabinet setting out the anticipated costs and long-term financial implications of a range of options for webcasting; and

(3)          In the event of physical meetings becoming possible in the next six months which the public are allowed to attend in the Civic Centre, Officers investigate the ongoing use of Zoom and/or the utilisation of the Council Chamber for both Cabinet and the Overview Select Committee to be webcast alongside Full Council and the Development Control Committee.

The Cabinet confirmed its decision as per Decision Notice C/002/220620, a copy of which is attached to the singed copy of the Minutes.