Calls for council leader James Gibson-Watt to apologise

Calls have been made for the council leader Cllr James Gibson-Watt to apologise, after he blamed the previous Independent/Conservative administration for not funding the live online viewing of all committee meeting

At a meeting of the Powys County Council’s  Democratic Services committee on Monday, September 5 the cessation of showing all council meetings live online was brought up for discussion.

In July it came as a surprise to many that a number of council meetings are now being held without the public and press being allowed access to watch them live.

The move was criticised by opposition councillors.

At the time, Liberal Democrat Cllr Gibson-Watt who leads a minority Lib Dem/Labour administration explained that there was only enough money to cover the Zoom licence to broadcast cabinet and full council meetings live.

Cllr Gibson-Watt said: “The previous cabinet took the decision to fund the Zoom system which has limited the live broadcasts available to us. ”

An answer to a  Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed that senior council staff who make up the Executive Management Team (EMT) took on May 26 to stop the live broadcasts.

At the Democratic Services meeting, committee vice-chairman Cllr Graham Breeze put forward a motion that recommends restoring live streaming of all council meetings.

Cllr Breeze said: “I’m choosing  to believe that the leader made an error when he blamed the previous administration rather than purposely misleading this authority and the public.

“Whichever way I hope he will be offering an apology.”

Cllr Pete Lewington said: “I was quite disappointed that the leader incorrectly blamed the previous administration and that needs to be corrected .”

Council leader, Cllr James Gibson-Watt said: “I was not exactly criticising the previous administration, but merely pointing out that criticism of the current one on the issue from previous cabinet members was unsound.

“The amount of money allocated to providing the service was set in the 2022/23 budget by the previous administration.

“The decision by EMT to limit the live streaming was therefore a consequence of that.

“So, no apology required.”

The committee has recommended that the council discuss the issue at their next meeting on October 6 and recommend that live access is restored.

Broadcasting all meeting should be restored within a period of three months from September 5, or 60 days from the full council meeting.

This allows time for problems with the technology to be ironed out.

Following local elections in May, councillors have returned to the council chamber at county hall in Llandrindod Wells for some meetings.

They take place in a hybrid format, which sees some councillors in the chamber and others take part online.

The public are able to watch full council and cabinet proceedings at the chamber in person or live online.

Similarly, the planning committee meetings are open to the public to view in the chamber but are not streamed live online.

The council’s scrutiny meetings on education, social service, environment, economy, pensions, licensing, and democratic services are now only held online.

Recordings are supposed to be uploaded onto the council website within 24 hours of the meeting ending.