This Council meeting tonight, like every Council meeting in Medway, is not being live streamed to the public.
Many other Councils, including our neighbours at KCC, live stream their Full Council and other Committee meetings. However, Medway Council was able to live stream the fireworks which were paid for with the money that will be saved from the vicious cuts to Sure Start.
Could the Councillor explain why the Council is able to live stream fireworks but not the meetings which decide how the fireworks will be paid for?
Minutes:
“This Council meeting tonight, like every Council meeting in Medway, is not being live streamed to the public.
Many other Councils, including our neighbours at KCC, live stream their Full Council and other Committee meetings. However, Medway Council was able to live stream the fireworks which were paid for with the money that will be saved from the vicious cuts to Sure Start.
Could the Councillor explain why the Council is able to live stream fireworks but not the meetings which decide how the fireworks will be paid for?”
Councillor Turpin stated that Medway Council had commissioned Ground Zero Productions to make the film that was shown during the Medway in Flames commemoration evening on 17 June 2017. The company was asked to also record and broadcast the event live onto large screens in festival zones across the dockside area because there was only limited space for people to watch the event on the riverside walk during the evening and the Council was keen for as many people as possible to be able to enjoy the event. The Council believed that in the region of 20,000 people enjoyed the viewing of the event from their different positions across Chatham that evening.
He stated that the Council would be using the recording to show the commemorations at various heritage sites around Medway, including Upnor Castle and the Guildhall Museum.
He stated that because much of the equipment needed was already in place for the streaming of the event to the large screens, the Council took the decision to livestream the event online at a small one-off additional cost of just a few hundred pounds, again to reach those people who were not able to come along on the evening. This video had now been watched 4,100 times.
Councillor Turpin stated that, with regards to live video or audio streaming of formal Council, Cabinet and Committee meetings in Medway, he understood that this would provide access to meetings for those people with an interest in Council business but who were unable to come along in person for a variety of reasons.
However, whilst there were some low cost DIY solutions for transmission of live recordings such as Periscope, Facebook Live and YouTube, it was important to recognise that provision of good quality live streaming would involve an annual ongoing revenue cost to the Council as opposed to the one- off fee associated with live streaming of Medway in Flames.
The majority of Councils who were live webcasting their meetings had entered into a contract with a webcasting provider which could cost anything between £5,000 and upwards of £20,000 every year, in addition to initial set up costs.
He stated that as an alternative to webcasting, there was other more affordable technology for good quality live audio streaming of meetings which would cost around £5,000 per year. He stated that he had seen a demonstration of one particular product but its use would require the Council to enter into a contract involving the identification of ongoing revenue funding and at the moment the budget was extremely tight.
He concluded by stating that until such time as the Council could identify the funding, the Council would continue to provide an audio recording of Full Council meetings on the website the day after each meeting.