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.