Posted: Fri 25th Sep 2020

“A large percentage of council work now will be done virtually” as council to formally look at ‘hybrid’ meeting models

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Friday, Sep 25th, 2020

The Full Council meeting this week was too exciting for one councillor, who appeared to nod off and miss a vote taking place.

On the meeting agenda was a formal noting of the quite positive annual report for the Audit Committee, in which Independent Lay Member Jerry O’Keeffe wrote, “The Committee has been well attended and there has been constructive questioning by Members throughout. There have been no major areas of concern for the Committee to note or report back on which is reassuring for the Council.”

He added, “Notwithstanding the extraordinary achievements of the Council in countering the impact of the Coronavirus on the local community, there are no issues or areas of concern that I wish to draw to the attention of Full Council other than what is set out in the Annual Governance Statement for 2019-20. ”

Scrutiny Committees were also reporting to Full Council on their year performance via another formal report that was quite positive, in what was a mixed period as all committee meetings were disrupted during November/December and from March due to the General Election and the pandemic. As a result the number of meetings was markedly down compared to other years.

The Council’s Scrutiny Champion Sonia Benbow-Jones explains how oversight has been maintained during the pandemic, “Due to the limitations that were placed on gatherings and the need to social distance meetings were cancelled from mid-March 2020. During this time informal scrutiny was undertaken and Chairs forwarded concerns raised by their committee members to Officers for response and reassurance. Examples of this related to safeguarding and the health and safety of staff working during the response to Covid-19.”

The overall average level of committee member attendance has remained relatively consistent at 80% this year, in comparison with 79% in 2018/19 and 83% in 2017/18.

One output from the meeting could be a formal move to a new normal of a ‘hybrid’ meeting as and when circumstances allow, that could see some councillors in the Guildhall while others Zoom-in via virtual meetings.

Council Leader Mark Pritchard gave a short speech pointing out the old ways of working were gone, “We have to open up scrutiny. We’re leading the way in Wales without a doubt.”

“We are trying to keep some form of normality with us, but what I would say, and this is just my opinion, I don’t think we’ll ever go back to where we were. I think a large percentage of council work now will be done virtually, whether it’s Microsoft Teams or Zoom. This is just a plea from myself as the leader because I like scrutiny, I embrace it. I think the more scrutiny you have, the better the authority is. I really believe that. You might think it’s strange coming from the leader of the council, but I want to be scrutinized. I want the executive board members to be scrutinized. I want them to justify why we make the decisions. I think it’s important.”

Cllr Dana Davies picked up on the comments on virtual working, and explained that she would “like to start the debate about adopting a hybrid model, a mix of virtual and a mix of a return to face to face meetings” with any such permanent change requiring the council’s constitution documents to be adapted.

Such changes could see meeting times become more flexible, and could impact on who considers able to stand to be a councillor. Previously late nights and travel have been voiced as issues with meetings, however now with ‘work from home’ more normal the council could move into the new world formally.

Cllr Davies said, “I think one of the positives that covid has given us is adopting the technology and adopting inclusiveness around having virtual meetings and I wouldn’t like to lose that. We need to update our constitution, and get the constitution working group together and start that debate about reviewing the constitution around a hybrid model with regards to meetings.”

Chair of that group Cllr Paul Pemberton agreed, “I think we need to be moving forward with us” with Cllr David A Bithell also speaking to support a meeting to discuss options.

With councillors embracing virtual working and scrutiny it means the public should get more of an insight to their elected representatives during meetings. Pre-pandemic the public could sit in a ‘public gallery’ row of chairs and observe meetings, or if it was one chosen to use the limited webcasting hours they could tune in live at home and catch the occasional wide shot of a meeting.

Unfortunately the Council’s public copies of meetings do not always use the Zoom ‘gallery’ view, but usually just shows the speaker. This set up is similar to what the old-normal in-chamber streaming system would show before the pandemic. Some meetings have shown wider gallery view shots.

The view any media (just Wrexham.com) attending the Full Council could see is the usual Zoom options, including a gallery view:

It is possible to switch to speaker view, or pin a user to full view all the time.

Early in the meeting we observed what looked like Ceiriog Valley’s Councillor Trevor Bates nodding off.

In the spirit of embracing scrutiny we then pinned the councillor in question via Zoom and recorded the view later in the meeting. The three and a half minute clip has been compressed for brevity below.

The vote was declared unanimous despite the councillor’s hand not being raised, however at the start of the meeting a roll call style vote appeared scrapped in favour of a quicker process that those indicating to oppose or abstain would indicate rather than running through tens of names at each item. Despite that hands were raised during the meeting to indicate support for items.

The meeting noted the Audit Committee’s Annual Report 2019-20, voted to agree that “… the Audit Committee’s important role in providing assurance as to the effectiveness of governance across the Council be recognised” and the work of Scrutiny was also noted.

Top pic: Cllr Bates during the meeting.



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