Yesterday Public-i helped City of Edinburgh Council with the first-ever webcast of its Full Council meeting.
Watched by more than 600 people, it was greeted as a success by the Lord Provost, Cllr Donald Wilson. He said: “It is very encouraging to see so many people engaging with the Council meeting. We realise it will take time for the viewing figures to build but this is a great start.”
Earlier he had started the meeting with a little joke: “I was dared to say this for Star Wars fans, but the webcams are now armed and fully operational.”
The Lord Provost wasn’t the only person who seemed pleased with the service. We kept an eye on the tweets on both the #edincouncil and the #edinwebcast – and it was well received as you’ll see here:-
To see more tweets have a look here.
We’re hoping this could be an exciting time for local government transparency in Scotland. City of Edinburgh has joined fellow Public-i clients, Highland and Moray, as the third Scottish council using webcasting to make the democratic process more open to the public. And last night Argyll and Bute put forward plans to consider our service as it looks to develop a closer relationship with its customers, too.
Edinburgh joins us on a year-long trial to broadcast full council meetings, with a view to extending the service if it proves popular. We’ll be working hard to make sure that’s the case – and to see how we can help other councils north of the border to boost transparency and openness.
Please feel free to get in touch if you’re interested in talking to us to find out more. You can call Sarah Gusterson on 07989 358 566 or email on sarah.gusterson@public-i.info.
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