Climate change debate at county hall and the case for putttng meeting recordings online.
There is a report on the Climate Change debate at last week's meeting of the full Cumbria County Council on the In Cumbria magazine site here.
The reporter who wrote it, Ellis Butcher who uses the twitter name Cumbria Journo, produced a completely accurate report which was about as informative as it could have been given the space available. Yet I was left thinking that it made the case for live-streaming council meetings so that people can see the detail of what has been said.
Ellis's report describes correctly what had been proposed and gives a representative sample of the points made by various people (including myself.) It certainly gives a picture of the pattern of debate across the chamber and the outcome and nothing in this blog post is meant to criticise the article.
I could not help thinking, however, that a lot of the more interesting things that were said, and some of the more useful points about what individuals can do to reduce their impact on the planet, came at the next level of detail down.
The council does not produce verbatim minutes (and probably should not do so, because it would require a significant amount of staff time resource which could usually be better spent on front line services.)
I do think it is a shame that any resident who reads Ellis's article and wants a bit more detail cannot go to the website and click on an audio or, better, video recording of the debate.
Some councils do provide such a service. I am convinced that this kind of e-Democracy is the way to move forward in the modern age, will improve engagement between councils and the people we are elected to represent, and hopefully thereby lead to us getting feedback which will help us to do our jobs better.
The reporter who wrote it, Ellis Butcher who uses the twitter name Cumbria Journo, produced a completely accurate report which was about as informative as it could have been given the space available. Yet I was left thinking that it made the case for live-streaming council meetings so that people can see the detail of what has been said.
Ellis's report describes correctly what had been proposed and gives a representative sample of the points made by various people (including myself.) It certainly gives a picture of the pattern of debate across the chamber and the outcome and nothing in this blog post is meant to criticise the article.
I could not help thinking, however, that a lot of the more interesting things that were said, and some of the more useful points about what individuals can do to reduce their impact on the planet, came at the next level of detail down.
The council does not produce verbatim minutes (and probably should not do so, because it would require a significant amount of staff time resource which could usually be better spent on front line services.)
I do think it is a shame that any resident who reads Ellis's article and wants a bit more detail cannot go to the website and click on an audio or, better, video recording of the debate.
Some councils do provide such a service. I am convinced that this kind of e-Democracy is the way to move forward in the modern age, will improve engagement between councils and the people we are elected to represent, and hopefully thereby lead to us getting feedback which will help us to do our jobs better.
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