Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Monitoring Officer.

The report provides an update on the legislation relating to remote meetings, the proposals and justifications for moving all committee meetings to the Connect Remote platform and a review of public engagement in and viewings of remote meetings to date.

The Committee is recommended to note the report and confirm whether the committee would like a similar report going to CRMG Scrutiny Committee.

Officer contact: Vicki Bates on 0161 474 3219 or email: vicki.bates@stockport.gov.uk

The Monitoring Officer submitted a report (copies of which had been circulated) providing an update on the legislation relating to remote meetings, the proposals and justifications for moving all committee meetings to the Connect Remote platform and a review of public engagement in and viewings of remote meetings to date.

The following comments were made/ issues made:-

·         The training that that had previously been requested by the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee and had now been arranged for committee chairs on the chairing and conduct of remote meetings was welcomed.

·         Members extended their thanks to Democratic Services for their work in developing and implementing solutions that allowed the Council to continue to conduct its businesses remotely. 

·         The transition to the new ‘Connect Remote’ platform for the conduct of remote meetings was welcomed as a significant improvement on the initial Microsoft Teams product.

·         Information was requested in relation to the viewership for meetings of the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee that had not been provided in the report.  In response it was stated that meetings of the committee had not typically been webcast in the past, and as such there was no data against which to compare performance against, however viewership data for the most recent meetings could be shared with members of the committee.

·         It was noted that meetings that had been webcast using the Connect Remote platform had lost an element of functionality that allowed meetings to be indexed according to the current speaker.  In response it was stated that the introduction of this facility formed part of the roadmap for the future development of the Connect Remote product.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.