You may well already be aware that last Wednesday, 6th August 2014, saw a new law passed which gives the public the right to film and digitally report from all public meetings of public bodies.
We’ve updated you on the progress of this over the past year, and the legislation marks a significant milestone in bringing local democracy up to date for the digital era.
Our take on the new law
As we’ve been discussing for a long time, we fully support and advocate greater openness and transparency in council meetings and decision-making. We’re really pleased that the government has taken this step, but we think it’s now even more important that all residents can watch and scrutinise meetings, talk about them and report on them – and webcasting is the best way to do this. It creates a digital record of the meeting, in other words an authoritative and reliable version that’s unedited and in context, and it also means that councils can provide comprehensive coverage.
So what does this mean for public bodies?
Our clients have increasingly been embracing this and effectively engaging their local communities with our webcasting and interactive tools to digitally welcome audiences into the council chamber. As the law is passed, the question is – would you prefer your decision-making processes and outcomes to be kept in the right context and communicated properly, or risk content being edited, filtered and interpreted in a non-controlled environment?
