Meeting documents

To receive the report.

The Committee discussed a report that set out the procedure and guidance for new virtual committee meetings starting in May and for the foreseeable future. It outlined the new regulations that came into force on 4 April 2020 and the various considerations emerging from these and notes there are likely to be further updates and issues during this transition period. In brief the guidance covers the following areas relevant to public Committee hearings: -

Accessing meetings

·         Microsoft Teams is the virtual meetings solution recommended for hosting remote / virtual meetings by Somerset County Council. It has functionality for audio, video, and screen sharing. For external users, they can also use the Teams app, by downloading it to their laptop, smartphone or tablet. External participants can be sent the meeting request vie email.  Alternatively, someone can be added to a meeting as a voice call.

Accessing agendas and reports

·         Democratic Services will continue to publish the agenda and reports for committee meetings ahead of these taking place on the Council’s website and will notify councillors by email in line with usual practice. Because of the Covid19 social distancing requirements, printed copies will no longer be available for inspection at the Council’s offices and this requirement was removed by the Regulations.

Meeting procedures

·         At the start of the virtual meeting, the Democratic Services Officer will check all required attendees are present. The Democratic Services Officer will also have details of any Members of the public attending and / or press. The public and press will be notified via the meeting information on the website that they will need to contact the Democratic Services Officer to obtain the link or code for the meeting. The Chair will ask all Members and Officers to turn off all unnecessary microphones, unless they are speaking. This prevents background noise, coughing, etc which is intrusive and disruptive during the meeting. Members would then need to turn their microphones back on when they wish to speak.   The Chair, who will use video when speaking, will ask all participants to turn off their video cameras. Participants will be asked to only turn on their microphones when they are invited to speak and keep their video functions turned off. For members of the Committee who wish to speak in the debate, they should click on the meeting chat facility and simply write their question or state they wish to ask a question so that the Chair and meeting administrator are aware. When the Chair invites someone to speak at the meeting, the speaker should say who they are for the benefit of everyone listening to the meeting, so it is clear who is speaking at any point.

Minutes of the meeting

·         Following consent from the committee, the Chair will sign the minutes of the meeting as a correct record at the next scheduled virtual meeting of the committee remotely using an electronic signature.

Public Participation

·         Participation by members of the public will continue in line with the current public participation scheme. This can include speaking and / or asking formal questions. Members of the public can listen to or observe the proceedings of a committee.

Voting

·         Within the Team facility, there is a straight-forward mechanism to deal with voting. The chat function should be used to ask the Committee to take a vote.

Confidential or exempt issues

·         There are times when part of a council meeting is not open to the public, when confidential, or "exempt" issues – as defined in Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 – are under consideration. It is important to ensure that there are no members of the public at remote locations able to hear or see the proceedings during such periods of a meeting. Any Councillor in remote attendance needs to ensure that only they are able to hear the debate or consider any exempt information, else they could be in breach of the Council’s Code of Conduct.

Disturbance from Members of the Public

·         In line with the council’s procedural rules, if any member of the public disrupts a meeting, the Chair will ask them to stop and advise them that they may be asked to leave the virtual meeting. If that person continues to interrupt or disrupt proceedings, the Chair can ask the Democratic Services Officer to remove them as a participant from the meeting.

Technical issues

·         In the event that the Chair or Democratic Services Officer identifies a failure of the remote participation facility, the Chair should declare an adjournment while the fault is addressed. If it is not possible to address the fault or if the meeting becomes inquorate at any point, the meeting can only continue with information items only and decision items will have to be postponed to the next virtual meeting.

The Committee discussed the paper and the proposed guidance for conducting Committee meetings using the remote facility. The Committee agreed that these procedures needed to be kept under review in the light of experience. The Committee recognised that the Local Government Regulations were still operating behind these proposals and that further changes could be included once this guidance and procedure had been used for Scrutiny Committee Meetings.

The Somerset Scrutiny for Policies for Adults and Health Committee: -

·         Considered the Procedure and Guidance on Virtual Committee Meetings and agreed to adopt them and update in the light of experience.