The Committee considered a report which it had requested at its last meeting on 29 August 2019 that provided it with an update on the Council and its Committees webcast viewing statistics.

Members noted that a number of recent Council meetings had generated significant public interest, necessitating use of ‘overflow rooms’ where members of the public who were unable to access the Council Chamber viewing gallery could watch proceedings via the weblink. As a result, some statistics did not (positively) reflect the full level of public interest for specific meetings. It was also noted that some archive views of meetings could be generated by Council officers who utilised the archive to assist in the preparation of meeting Minutes and actions arising as a result of Member debate. 

The viewing figures for the Municipal Year 2018/19 (67 meetings) were as follows:

·  1842 ‘live’ views during all meetings  

·  6911 access views to the archive

·  8753 Total

A breakdown of the above figures was attached to the report at Appendix 1.

Members raised concerns about the poor quality subtitles/transcriptions that appeared at the bottom of the webcasts.  It was proposed that Public-I be informed that the quality was not as good as had been expected.  However, Members were informed that officers were working with Public-I, the webcasting company, to bring about improvement and were purchasing an additional piece of kit to address the issue.  Links were also being included to direct people to other services that would help with this issue.  It was noted that, there was a particular problem which was caused by the local accent. Other applications were also being explored.

RESOLVED: That

(1)  Public-I be given the opportunity to address the problem of the poor subtitles/transcriptions with the provision of the add on to the webcasting system on order; and

(2)  this Committee will continue to monitor the Council’s webcasting arrangements and subsequent viewing statistics, during the ensuing Municipal Year.