Plans to live broadcasts meetings have caused a political row split Argyll and Bute Council – although both sides seem to be in favour of the move.
The authority’s minority SNP group put forward a motion to last week’s full meeting of the council calling for a report in November, with a view to the broadcasts starting in January.
The coalition which runs the council voted instead to ask officials to confirm costs at ‘a future meeting’ – a move the SNP said was ‘effectively kicking it into touch.
Cllr Julie Mckenzie said the move was ‘incomprehensible’ and a u-turn by the Argyll, Lomond and the Islands group.
“The SNP motion presented Argyll and Bute councillors with a real opportunity to take forward a piece of work that would have enhanced the transparency and democratic scrutiny of the council’s decision making process, by making it much more accessible to many more of our residents,” she said.
But council leader Aileen Morton said the council’s formal priorities for the next four years included a commitment to ‘investigate how to make the workings of the Council more transparent through improved communication at all levels – contact centre, website, social media and broadcasting council meetings’.
She added: “We agreed to investigate how we can make it easier for local people to understand how the council works and there will now be an internal review of all council communication to ensure it is effective and helpful to local residents.
“As part of this we will consider broadcasting council meetings, and any costs related to this will be reported back to a future meeting of the council.
“Even more importantly at the council meeting we agreed to move forward with a participatory budgeting pilot for our Supporting Communities Fund, putting power directly into the hands of local people.
“This is hopefully just the first step in a substantial shift towards greater control being handed over to our communities.”
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