The online broadcasting of Edinburgh Council meetings will remain unchanged after councillors said the costs required to keep webcasting three committees was worth it.<\/p>\n
City officers had asked councillors to approve ceasing broadcasting three council committees with low viewership numbers, in a bid to save around \u00a36,000 per year.<\/p>\n
But councillors agreed that the sum was a \u201csmall price to pay\u201d for transparency, deciding at the Policy and Sustainability Committee on Tuesday to keep webcasting three meetings.<\/p>\n
Officers had suggested the webcasting of the Pentland Hills Regional Park Joint Committee, the Local Review Body and the Consultative Committee with Parents cease to be webcast.<\/p>\n
They said the low viewership of each \u2013 with all three together making up under 3% of the council\u2019s webcast views in the year to June 30 \u2013 made them not worth the cost.<\/p>\n
Edinburgh Council has webcast some meetings since 2012, but the covid lockdown saw almost all public meetings begin to be broadcast online.<\/p>\n
If approved, the reduction of webcasting would have returned the offering to the pre-pandemic level, with the addition of the Traffic Regulation Orders Sub-Committee and the Edinburgh City Region Joint Deal committee.<\/p>\n
Councillors also discussed whether some private meetings, and private portions of public meetings, should be recorded.<\/p>\n
Officers recommended that they not be recorded at all, in order to reduce legal risk, but also put forward options where they could be recorded via Microsoft Teams or the city\u2019s webcast system.<\/p>\n
They suggested that these recordings be deleted as soon as minutes of what was said in each meeting were agreed.<\/p>\n
Councillors agreed with officers that private council business should not be recorded on a 9-8 vote, with supporters citing security concerns.<\/p>\n
SNP councillor Kate Campbell said: \u201cEveryone is in agreement that \u00a36,000 to maintain transparency is a small price to pay for democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere I think maybe we don\u2019t have support, and maybe I\u2019m making a plea to colleagues \u2013 we\u2019re happy for private business to be recorded through Teams, but we think it should be retained for two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a number of reasons why we think that. There\u2019s just a lot of discussions we have on private business where they are nuanced and detailed discussions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it comes to light much later that the focus of that discussion, or where that report was focused, councillors weren\u2019t given information they needed at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can then result in decisions having been made much later where you can trace back to a committee that was [in private], and currently we\u2019re at a real disadvantage where we just don\u2019t have a record of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
And SNP group leader councillor Simita Kumar remarked that there had been a situation where a decision had been made in private on unlicensed HMOs where councillors did not remember what had been said.<\/p>\n
Liberal Democrat group leader Edward Thornley said: \u201cI\u2019m glad that we seem to have come to an agreement about public meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the recording, and storing of private meetings \u2013 I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve got enough assurance that this can be done fully securely.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Conservative councillors in the committee agreed with the Liberal Democrat position.<\/p>\n
Green councillor Alex Staniforth said:\u00a0\u201cWhile I understand some concerns around security, papers can be leaked, and have been leaked. Comments can be leaked, and have been leaked.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny one person in this room, were they being unscrupulous, could subtly record the discussion being held. I hope no-one would, but they could do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd having Teams recordings of those discussions is more advantageous than it is deleterious to our security. We must face the fact, this place is not leak-proof as it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think [recording the meetings] would make it leakier.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SNP group also tried to get the committee to agree to begin recording the Pensions Committee, however, the committee did not agree this.<\/p>\n
By Joseph Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter<\/p>\n