Published on Tuesday 14 April 2020
BCP Council's first virtual meeting was held today following guidance from the Coronavirus Act 2020 which has temporarily removed the legal requirement for councils to hold public meetings in person. This will ensure that all participants are able to contribute and vote without the need to meet in person, enabling them to make key decisions about council services during the Covid-19 crisis.
During today’s Licensing Sub-Committee meeting, all participants connected remotely so that no councillors, officers or other parties needed to attend the council offices. The council has worked on technological arrangements which allowed the meeting to be streamed live, enabling members of the public to attend in a virtual capacity. The recording of the Licensing Sub-Committee meeting is available here:
https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=289&MId=3796&Ver=4
The success of today’s meeting will enable some of the future BCP Council meetings and committees to be held virtually during the Covid-19 crisis. These arrangements will apply to meetings where the public would normally be permitted to attend, however the practicalities of these virtual events may require alternative arrangements to be put in place for certain aspects of the agenda.
Councillor Vikki Slade, Leader of BCP Council said:
"We are encouraged that we have been able to continue some of our meetings during the Covid-19 crisis. We want to ensure that the council is able to continue its business critical functions during these unprecedented times. It is likely, however, that the number of meetings may be slightly reduced as the capacity of our officers to produce the relevant papers is now limited and future projects and policy decisions may well be affected by the financial implications of Covid-19."
The next meeting will be the Overview and Scrutiny Board meeting on Monday 20 April. Details of how to access the meeting can be found here: https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=292&MId=4472