Filming Council Meetings

philipjohn

What are the arguments for and against filming council meetings? Does filming make councils more accountable, or threaten individual privacy?

↧

For

Councillors will behave

If they know they’re being watched, councillors may be more inclined to conduct themselves with more decorum.

Argue against this point

Often only on a small scale but meetings can be very interesting. For example, a planning meeting discussing an application for a phone mast will be very interesting to the few people living in close proximity.

Argue against this point

Brings about change

Increased awareness of what goes on in council meetings can encourage the community to challenge the processes or even stand for election themselves.

Argue against this point

Increased engagement

More people will be inclined to engage with their representatives when they can see how they perform in the chamber.

Argue against this point

Increased awareness

Recordings of council meetings will give more people the opportunity to see what their elected representatives do for them.

Argue against this point

Transparency

Video is the most transparent way to present council meetings to those unable to attend.

Argue against this point

Puts faces to names

Constituents will be able to see who their elected representatives are rather than just knowing them as a name on a slip of paper every four years.

Argue against this point

Shows the reality of council business

Many people don’t know or understand what goes on in the council chamber. Filming council meetings would lead to greater understanding throughout the general public of the process.

Argue against this point

Councillors grand-stand anyway. And is that such a bad thing?

I’ve seen councillors bring props into the council chamber to wave about, or engage in theatrical displays of anger, without cameras being present. They don’t need any encouragement to grandstand.

And is a bit of theatre really that bad? PMQs in the House of Commons seems to get a good audience each week. Perhaps a little bit of drama could be good for council meeting ratings too?

Argue against this point

Council PR budget

Although filming by individuals is of course free, for a council to establish webcasts, a diversion of funds away from the PR budget would provide a far more valuable service than glossy council ‘newspapers’ in terms of public engagement and transparency.

Argue against this point

It's expected

People, especially younger generations, are getting used to a more on-demand culture. Ignoring this will leave an already antiquated process farther behind.

Argue against this point

Councils should provide their own unedited version

All the more reason for councils to film meetings themselves, to provide a true record of events.

Argue against this point

There is no evidence

Rather it brings about the opportunity for change. If people can’t see the current process easily enough, how will they be able to scrutinise and challenge it’s format?

Argue against this point

Local media aren't reporting meetings

The retreat of local media to regional centres has seen a decline in the number of reporters attending meetings.

Rather, local authorities need to be filming council meetings to counter the reduction in resources that local newspapers are allocating to reporting the business of council meetings.

Argue against this point

quasi-judicial

It is especially important to film/record planning/licensing committee meetings. These are quasi judicial and members and officers clearly make life changing decisions - absolute transparency is essential not only for those directly affected but to improve the perception, real or otherwise, of secrecy within the planning system.

Argue against this point

Does one really need training in order to be oneself?

All councillors need to behave like is themselves. Of course, in the early days of any filming experiment, they’ll almost certainly - because they’re ordinary human beings like everybody else - start off playing to the cameras, but pretty soon they’ll settle down and ignore it. The answer to that is simply to start such an experiment sufficiently far away from election time that the initial playing up won’t influence the election result - and if any given councillor continues to act like an idiot in meetings, then it’s only fair that their electorate can see that.

Argue against this point

You can do it effectively for free

I’ve videoed - streaming live whilst they were taking place - both the #brewcamp events which have taken place so far using nothing more than my mobile phone - http://www.star-one.org.uk/tag/brewcamp/

The first one I streamed to the web using my own 3G data plan, the second one was streamed via the wifi which was in the venue.

So how much resource do you actually need?

http://www.star-one.org.uk/brewcamp-o...

Argue against this point

Many public speakers would like to be filmed

Most public speakers are representatives of groups; they would like to be able to share what they’ve done, and the councillors’ response, with those they represent.

I’ve heard public speakers groan when the chair has ordered filming be stopped for their contribution.

Argue against this point

Enables recording of votes

Only very few votes at my local council are formally recorded. Most things are nodded through (if there’s no dissent) and when there is a vote, unless a special request is made, it is a simple show of hands. This is often done far too quickly for anyone to record accurately who voted which way. A video (or photo) of the voting can aid in showing who voted which way.

Argue against this point

public interest

These are public representatives making decisions ‘on our behalf’ in a very public arena. We have every right to witness what is going on and which way cllrs vote. On the issue of council officers and employees, again they are in a public arena - they are making the recommendations and leading the various arguments. Apart from exempt reports (and the test for those should be stronger as I believe my council uses this exemption unnecessarily for controversial spending issues), the word ‘privacy’ is irrelevant to a council chamber.

Argue against this point

So?

The fact that some people (probably most people, in fact) think council meetings are boring is not a valid reason for not filming them. Some people think they’re interesting - why should they be denied that access to democracy?

Argue against this point

Then provide the context

Since all the council papers have to be available to the public anyway (which in practice means putting them on the council website), it’s no bother to put those papers on the council website in advance of the meeting for the interested member of the public to read beforehand.

Argue against this point

Accountability

Having a video of proceedings allows the public to hold their representatives to account more easily, ensuring their actions match their election promises.

Argue against this point

Archiving

Videos of council meetings can be archived as a true record of events, and to ensure councillors are kept to their word.

Argue against this point

There is demand

Clearly the fact that we’re having this discussion, and that there are people who are wanting to see streamed video of council meetings is evidence that there is indeed the demand.

Argue against this point

Argument put on the wrong side

Presumably whoever added this argument put it in the wrong side, since the expansion of the point is actually an argument in favour of filming meetings.

Argue against this point

Video is better than audio, and video includes audio anyway

OK, so maybe the debate should have been framed as ‘recording council meetings and streaming the recording on the internet’.

But that aside audio is not ‘perfectly fine’ - it is a lot easier to understand what people are saying if you can see them speaking, even on a crumbly internet video feed; by simply being able to see inside the room you have a much better sense of what’s going on.

And for anybody who can’t see the video pictures, the video still contains the audio, so for those people who find it ‘perfectly fine’ nobody would be forcing them to watch the pictures.

Argue against this point

So provide the metadata then!

If people are going to go to the trouble of filming council meetings, then it stands to reason that they’ll also go to the trouble of assigning the appropriate metadata to the files; alternatively, it stands to reason that they’ll deposit the files in the same place they deposit the minutes and supporting documents for every council meeting already.

Argue against this point

I'm waiting for jetpacs / personal helicopters

That argument is akin to the argument of the person who won’t use a train because it’s a rubbish form of transport, because they’re waiting for the future when everybody will have their own personal jetpacs or personal helicopters to travel about in.

Just because something might be done incompletely at first whilst people learn how to do it is not a valid argument for not doing it at all.

Argue against this point

Councillors are public figures

If you’re a councillor, you’re an elected public figure, so you have no reasonable expectation of being anonymous when carrying out your business as a councillor.

Council meetings are also attended by council officers - senior managers are also effectively public figures (and arguably in a position of needing to be even more accountable to the public than councillors, since they set more policy than the councillors do anyway), who also by doing the job have no reasonable expectation of anonymity.

The only people in attendance at council meetings who have a reasonable expectation of privacy are the junior / mid-level officers who simply do what they’re told to by their managers who very occasionally attend meetings; it ought not to be beyond the whit of man to arrange it so they are not on camera.

Argue against this point

Show all

Against

We don't have the resources

We can’t film council meetings because the resources aren’t there to make it happen.

Argue against this point

Waste without meta data

There’s no point in filming meetings unless they’re accompanied by appropriate meta data

Argue against this point

Invasion of privacy

Filming council meetings is a clear invasion of privacy

Argue against this point

No context

Without context, filming council meetings is meaningless.

Argue against this point

There is no demand

Nobody wants to see council meetings

Argue against this point

Gives Those Appealing Planning/Licencing Decisions Too Much Information

I’ve attended a Cambridge City Council meeting where councillors argued that making full videos / or recordings of planning / licensing meetings would damage democracy as it would be easier for people to successfully appeal licensing / planning decisions as they would be able to give evidence of things like inadmissible arguments being used, and relied on, by councillors.

I disagree with this; I’m reporting an argument my local council puts forward for not producing full videos / transcripts.

Argue against this point

Training is needed

Councillors would need to be trained in how to conduct themselves during meetings that are filmed.

Argue against this point

Accessibility

Meetings will be more accessible, allowing the public to see more of what goes on.

Argue against this point

Audio is good enough

Why video when audio is perfectly fine for getting the substance across.

Argue against this point

Evidence?

That’s an assertion, not an argument; making unsupported assertions only serves to undermine genuine reasons for change. Present some evidence!

Argue against this point

Politicians will engage in grandstanding

Knowing they’re being filmed will encourage councillors to play up for the cameras.

Argue against this point

Selective filming will misrepresent proceedings and mislead the public

Unless the whole debate is filmed - from start to finish (and all preceding sessions in which a subject was raised are also available via the same channels) then selective reporting may happen by design or accident. This can misrepresent a particular debate or it can result in subjects that are of interest to time-rich active citizens being featured while subjects that are equally important (but don’t have an active time-rich interest group behind them) being ignored.

An example could be the focus on debates around parking or other motoring issues compared to that on issues that largely effect single mothers or ‘carers’ who don’t (almost by definition) have the time to go to meetings with a camcorder.

In short, it allows unelected pressure groups to frame debates.

http://blog.localdemocracy.org.uk/201...

Argue against this point

It will give the local media yet another excuse to avoid covering council meetings

When the rules were changed to allow parliamentary proceedings to be broadcast, national newspapers significantly reduced their coverage of parliament on the grounds that they no longer had a duty to record this activity for a relatively small segment of their readership. While it may have been true that a small portion of the readers read proceedings every day, many more dipped in occasionally.

If council proceedings are routinely embedded in lots of blogs, maybe newspapers will send even fewer reporters to cover them than they do already.

http://blog.localdemocracy.org.uk/201...

Argue against this point

Meetings are boring

Council meetings are boring - who’d want to watch them!

Argue against this point

Discourages public speakers

Councillors and members of the public alike may be put off speaking up because they will be filmed.

Argue against this point

Broadcast-only

All filming meetings will do is broadcast council messages to people, it doesn’t explicitly allow them to engage.

Argue against this point

Meetings are ugly

Council meetings are based on years old processes and aren’t particular exciting.

Argue against this point

PMQs is a prime example of pathetic playground politics

We shouldn’t be encouraging the sort of pointless petty point scoring in local government that we see played out on the ten o’clock news in Parliament.

Argue against this point

Online video is still a relatively minority interest

Not sure I entirely agree with this counter-argument - at the end of the day anybody who can read can read a council newspaper anywhere at pretty much any time. Fewer people can read a council website, and the times people could read it are more restricted. Very few people (in comparison) have the inclination to watch video online, and the times and places people can watch online video are much much more restricted than simply reading text online, and I’d wager the people with the inclination to watch a council meeting online are a tiny minority indeed compared with those who would read a council newspaper.

Any discussion about the merits of the content of any given council newspaper are, is course, discussion for a different discussion.

Argue against this point

Make an argument for
"For"

Make an argument for
"Against"