Council U-turns on meetings livestream policy

Town hall chiefs have U-turned on a decision to remove a video archive of council meetings from public view which came under fire from residents and opposition councillors.

Harry Catherall, the chief executive of Oldham council, has today (Monday) confirmed that after a ‘review’ of the authority’s policies around public meetings, all previous recordings have been reinstated.

And future meetings will once again be available to watch back online after they have concluded.

Mr Catherall said: “A review has been completed of the council’s policies and procedures around public meetings, including webcasting and webhosting of videos.

“During this period, recordings of meetings were temporarily taken offline, to ensure the meetings were reviewed thoroughly and any evidence to support criminal proceedings were reviewed and captured.

“All council recordings have now been reinstated online for people to view.

"These meetings will also continue to be live streamed going forward and be available for members of the public and the media to catch-up afterwards.

“In Oldham we remain absolutely committed to full transparency and the democratic process, and continue to make these meetings accessible to members of the public and media.”

Oldham council had regularly webcast major committee meetings, including cabinet, planning and full council live on YouTube, where they could be watched back at any time.

However, last month the authority stated that it had changed it procedures so that meetings would only be shown live in real-time, and would no longer be available to replay.

It had also removed its archive of videos from the streaming platform, meaning at least three years of footage of scores of meetings had disappeared from public view.

Liberal Democrat and Conservative opposition councillors wrote to Mr Catherall asking for the decision to be reversed.

Lib Dem group leader Howard Sykes had branded it a ‘backwards step for trust’, which Tory councillor Lewis Quigg had described the actions of the town hall as being like a ‘tinpot dictatorship’.

The council said it took the decision to remove past meetings because footage of them had been edited and ‘taken out of context’ and used to ‘unfairly target and illicit hate and harassment towards people’.

It stated this had meant it was ‘necessary’ to review its policies and procedures around public meetings, including broadcasting them.

Previous meetings from this year, including planning and fiery full council meetings in June and July have now returned to public view on the streaming site.

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