Thanet council meeting videos to be put online

THE first step to Thanet council meetings being broadcast over the internet will take place next week at a meeting of the authority’s overview and scrutiny panel.

A number of requests to broadcast council meetings to a wider audience have been made to the authority and although all public meetings are recorded on DVD and are available for viewing they have not so far been available on the world wide web.

The current technology installed in the council chamber is not capable of live broadcasting however the authority plans to upload the DVD to the internet for viewing.

 

Live streaming of council meetings will not happen as the authority says it will cost too much to buy the equipment.

The broadcast will be edited by the communications department to ensure that nothing prior to the start or end of the meetings or exempt items are transmitted.

This means that items that are exempt from the public, for instance when wages or business deals are being discussed, these items will be removed before going on the internet.

Thanet council’s democratic services will proof the transmission before broadcast to ensure all exempt information is not transmitted.

Kent County Council already stream some of their meetings live over the internet including cabinet meetings on their website.

The proposal is to transmit three full council meetings on December 17, February 25 and April 22 as a pilot at www.thanet.gov.uk

Following the pilot the council will monitor the amount of hits and the figures will be presented back to council to consider whether to carry on with uploading the meetings.

It is unlikely that live streaming will be considered until the equipment to transmit live becomes financially viable. The cost of uploading the meetings should be kept within the existing budgets.

If agreed the proposals will have to be ratified by full council.