The Basingstoke and Dean Borough Council team is looking to launch their virtual council meetings through Zoom’s webinar feature.
The solution
The council will only be using Zoom for public council meetings where as closed and private meetings will be performed over MS Teams. They are still considering the approach for private sessions of public meetings (confidential reports), and will be testing locking webinars.
The reasons stated by the team to use Zoom are:
- ability to live stream meetings via YouTube or Facebook. They currently livestream all the council’s meetings and then upload to YouTube
- ability to have all councillors on screen, this is a requirement from the democratic team to be able to ensure members are present. This will also be helpful for any hand display votes should they decide to perform votes that way.
- apps on all platforms / OS’s give flexibility to those who need to be at the meeting
- Cloud, no changes in the IT Infrastructure required to set up this platform
The project team has been set up to monitor the progress and implementation of the processes. The team has representation from a range of departments including IT, Democratic Services and legal teams which provides a holistic knowledge base for organising meetings end to end.
How is the new approach being sustained?
The Democratic Team will provide the necessary support to the meeting, this is likely to mean an increase in the number of democratic staff supporting meetings so that minute taking and meeting control can be separated. The team is working closely with elected members to provide knowledge and skills where necessary. Democratic and Legal teams are considering the timings of meetings to ensure that officer participation is sustainable.
Lessons learned
The team has stated several key learning points:
- It is conscious about having a broad range of ages and skills with members and have highlighted that communication is key ensure councillors have the confidence to participate.
- Important to set up a central project team that has representatives from all of the key departments who contribute to the delivery of council meetings.
Contact
Paul Tatam IT Manager
[email protected]