At the last Mendip District Council Full Council meeting (13 June 2013), I posed two questions. The first was aimed at asking the Council to impropve its communications and how it engages with the public in meetings:

“1.      Can the Council’s leadership commit to more effectively publicise the two remaining ‘Meet the Cabinet’ events, in Wells and Street, to attract more members of the public to attend and ask questions than at the Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury events?  Frome’s attracted many more, partly due to publicity generated locally by a number of district and town councillors in Frome, so are there lessons that could be learned from this? 

Can the Council note and publicise the fact that the Frome event (which attracted over 30 members of the public) is available to listen to in full on the Frome FM website (http://frome.fm/2013/06/fracking-and-flytipping/) after I arranged it at no cost to the Council.

Would the Council’s leadership agree in principle that recording or filming Council meetings in future is a good way of enabling the public to engage with the work of the Council via the internet?”

Although the debate on this question was deferred to the next meeting in September, to allow officers time to review the outcome of the last two Meet the Cabinet sessions (in Wells and Street), the importance of communicating and engaging with the public was raised.  I have had further discussions with officers and senior councillors, about how to improve publicity for Council meetings to get people more interested in attending (including by involving parish/town/city councils), and the costs and benefits of recording and webcasting council meetings are now being investigated. Both issues will be reported by officers to the next Communications Working Group, and hopefully then taken to Full Council or Cabinet later this year. 

With only 2-3 people attending Full Council meetings, I am keen that the council looks at the good practice elsewhere to better involve local people in the important issues the Council makes decisions on, by using the internet, which most people now have.  The Government (DCLG) now encouraging members of the public to film council meetings themselves, in recent guidance. The Welsh Assembly is actively funding web-broadcasting of meetings by local councils in Wales. Bath & NE Somerset Council meetings have been watched by hundreds/thousands of residents online.  Meetings in Frome will also be filmed and broadcast (from the autumn, meetings of the new ‘One Frome’ forum are to be filmed for broadcast, and the recent Meet the Cabinet session was recorded by Frome FM for broadcast and the web). So I think this is a step in the right direction for Mendip in the 21st Century.