Photography and Filming in Council Meetings, The Local Audit and Accountability Bill Options

[Simon Kirby]

The Local Audit and Accountability Bill is currently going through the final ping-pong stage which looks likely to create a right to film council meetings. At present if you want to film or take a photo at a council meeting there is a significant risk that an uppity clerk could call the police and have you arrested. You'd not be doing anything illegal and the police don't actually have any power of arrest if all you're doing is quietly filming or snapping the proceedings, but it's happened that people have been carted off to the cells in handcuffs for just that, only to be released without charge. Utterly appalling in what is supposed to be a free society.

You already have a right under the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 to attend meetings of the full parish council and its committees, though that right doesn't extend to sub-committees, but it's helpful here to understand what a committee and sub-committee is - a committee is a meeting which has its power to make decisions delegated directly by the council, and a sub-committee is a meeting which has its power to make decisions delegated by a committee.

So for our own town council its committees are the Policy & Resources Committee; Community Services Committee, Civic Pride, Arts & Leisure Committee, and the Planning & Highways Committee, but also the confisingly-named Urgency Sub-Committee which is technically a committee. You don't currently have a right to attend a Grants Sub-Committee or a Staff Sub-Committee.

So you shouldn't actually need a right to take a photo or video of a councillor or officer in a council meeting because it's not disruptive and the only power the council has is to evict you from the meeting if you're being disruptive, but in practice councillors and officers can be very unhappy indeed about their business being exposed to public scrutiny and criticism - but that's the cornerstone of a free society and it's very important to assert that right.

I think you might be surprised at some of the harridan harpies and knuckle-dragging halfwits that people local government. Voting for someone on the strength of their party affiliation alone does not create good local government and exposing the arrogance, vanity, self-serving, and good old-fashioned ignorance, fear and prejudice that exists in local councils should do wonders for accountability.

[Ruwan Uduwerage-...]

Dear Forum Members,

Why not just come along to the odd (and they certainly are) meeting or two, get involved in any Working Groups that are established and become involved.

As stated before there is not only support for the public recording such meetings, but the Leader of the Council, Cllr Julian Swift-Hook is positively enthusiastic about the benefits of steaming meetings.

I personally welcome this process as it will hopefully reduce the all too common 'verbose' responses to a public audience of '0' that happens far too frequently. If Officers and Members were aware that everything they said and did in the Chamber was subject of public scrutiny then I suspect that I would get home a lot earlier than I currently do.

As for using our equipment, not sure I said this as NTC's equipment will be used transmitting to the world and beyond. Gosh my relatives in distant lands could watch and listen to Newbury Town Council at work, but I am not so sure that they will find the experience riveting, but it will increase the publics opportunity to scrutinise their council and decide whether their Councillors actually represent the interests of their Wards appropriately or as some in the Forum posit merely act as mouth pieces for their 'Masters at the District Council, or Party HQ.

Seriously though, if this increases openness and transparency it has to be good?

Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Newbury Town Council - Councillor for Victoria Ward & Deputy Leader

[Cognosco]

Dear Forum Members,

Why not just come along to the odd (and they certainly are) meeting or two, get involved in any Working Groups that are established and become involved.

As stated before there is not only support for the public recording such meetings, but the Leader of the Council, Cllr Julian Swift-Hook is positively enthusiastic about the benefits of steaming meetings.

I personally welcome this process as it will hopefully reduce the all too common 'verbose' responses to a public audience of '0' that happens far too frequently. If Officers and Members were aware that everything they said and did in the Chamber was subject of public scrutiny then I suspect that I would get home a lot earlier than I currently do.

As for using our equipment, not sure I said this as NTC's equipment will be used transmitting to the world and beyond. Gosh my relatives in distant lands could watch and listen to Newbury Town Council at work, but I am not so sure that they will find the experience riveting, but it will increase the publics opportunity to scrutinise their council and decide whether their Councillors actually represent the interests of their Wards appropriately or as some in the Forum posit merely act as mouth pieces for their 'Masters at the District Council, or Party HQ.

Seriously though, if this increases openness and transparency it has to be good?

Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Newbury Town Council - Councillor for Victoria Ward & Deputy Leader

Ruwan

A very many people have strong opinions but when it comes to standing up at public meetings and asking questions this for them is a game stopper. You mention council equipment and new media? You yourself are debating on a local forum just what is wrong with the council entering into this debate and answering the questions posted exactly the same as you are participating in now? After all it is only just another medium for engaging with the public is it not? Why should the public have to travel to the town hall after all you have probably reached more of the public on this forum than you ever will via other means that the council uses at the moment, I don't mind being corrected if this is incorrect, so why not suggest the other Councillors get together and request forum members post any questions they have and get them to debate them on this forum? I fail to see the difference in me traveling to the town hall or sitting at my computer and submitting the questions. At least I won't waste a lot of my time at the town hall and being informed that they are unable to enter into discussions on that subject which has occurred more times than I care to remember.
I therefore challenged the council to move with the times and engage with the public via the modern method of the digital aid instead of in a stuffy town hall.

[Ruwan Uduwerage-...]

I therefore challenged the council to move with the times and engage with the public via the modern method of the digital aid instead of in a stuffy town hall.

I fully support the sentiments, but we live in a society that rightly requires evidence and someone to take responsibility for their words and deeds, and although I am willing to participate in the Forum, the questions posed can only inform my actions, not dictate them for they are generally made by 'faceless' people who do not corroborate what they have said with evidence.

As with any official body, for the Council to take action it requires the applicant to at least send in a formal letter of concern/complaint. This may appear bureaucratic but to someone such as myself who has been involved in the criminal justice system for all of my adult life, it seems eminently sensible.

As for travelling to the Town Hall, we are talking about the residents of Newbury are we not? Newbury is not exactly huge, and the Town Hall is in the centre. Now if you had said that it was disproportionately expensive to park ones car in order to get to the Town Hall, I would agree as I seem to pay a vast amount weekly merely to attend or undertake Council business.

Of course an alternative method would be for Public and Forum members to make official complaints directly to Ward Councillors, but even then, for the complaint to be processed it would have to come from a named person, unless of course it was of a criminal nature, then really people should go straight to the police.

You have though posed a rather good question about posing questions in the post-Streaming period about whether someone need to be physically present in the Chamber to ask a supplementary question to one presented either orally or by way of a letter/email? I will seek further guidance on this one.

Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Newbury Town Council - Councillor for Victoria Ward & Deputy Leader

[Simon Kirby]

As with any official body, for the Council to take action it requires the applicant to at least send in a formal letter of concern/complaint. This may appear bureaucratic but to someone such as myself who has been involved in the criminal justice system for all of my adult life, it seems eminently sensible.

That's not so. In the case of the decision to waive the £2.5k Victoria Park booking fee for the Christmas Market the Council was able to review its previous decision without a formal complaint from anyone.

In general the legal position is that a council can put anything at all it wants on the agenda as long as it has the competency to decide the issue. There is nothing in statute, common law, nor in your standing order that requires you to have a formal complaint.

A complainant has a right under your complaints process to have her complaint heard by the council, though in practice you make it very difficult for the public to exercise that right - I was only given a hearing in my eviction dispute seven months after you served me with the forfeiture - the first opportunity I was given to actually make my case, and of course once the council has decided something it never changes it mind.

[Andy Capp]

That's not so. In the case of the decision to waive the £2.5k Victoria Park booking fee for the Christmas Market the Council was able to review its previous decision without a formal complaint from anyone.

In general the legal position is that a council can put anything at all it wants on the agenda as long as it has the competency to decide the issue. There is nothing in statute, common law, nor in your standing order that requires you to have a formal complaint.

A complainant has a right under your complaints process to have her complaint heard by the council, though in practice you make it very difficult for the public to exercise that right - I was only given a hearing in my eviction dispute seven months after you served me with the forfeiture - the first opportunity I was given to actually make my case, and of course once the council has decided something it never changes it mind.

Simon, have you tried to send a complaint to the council, perhaps care of Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera?

[Simon Kirby]

Simon, have you tried to send a complaint to the council, perhaps care of Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera?

I think I need to do that, but I hope they remember that it was their idea.

[Cognosco]

I think I need to do that, but I hope they remember that it was their idea.

Simon has there been any movement on this yet?

[Simon Kirby]

Simon has there been any movement on this yet?

I'm keeping that on the Q.T. I'll probably mosey off for a few months in the hope, yet again, of resolving this thing.