City of York Councillors will have to continue to attend meetings in person as plans for tele conferencing have been shelved for the time being at least. Central government rules require members to be physically present at meetings if they are to exercise their vote.
It is possible that teleconferencing may be introduced for regional and national meetings.
The decision is contained in a report published yesterday which revealed that there were 63,949 “views” of webcast Council meetings in the City during the last year. That was up 28% on the previous period and includes “live” views and those later watching “on demand”.
The largest number of views was for a controversial audit meeting held on 18th September 2019 which attracted 2849.
On the other hand the numbers viewing some other meetings have been as low as 63. The budget Council meeting last week attracted only 424 viewers.
It is unclear what proportion of York residents are regular viewers. Some at least may be participants, their families and friends.
There was some scepticism when webcasting was first introduced about the value for money of the service. However, it is now regarded as a useful decision making record and is a valuable resource for researchers.
A similar service has been introduced by several other Councils.