Harrogate council's first online meeting set to take place next month

Senior councillors will hold a cabinet meeting by video link on May 6.

It will go ahead using Microsoft’s Teams software - and members of the public can follow it on the council's YouTube channel.

Coun Graham Swift, deputy leader and cabinet member with responsibility for democratic services, said: “We have managed to conduct business continuously throughout the pandemic but larger decision making that engages council, cabinet or committee had to be postponed.

“However, now that government has introduced new legislation to permit remote meetings, we can get back to conducting our committee decisions collectively, and in public."

The meeting will start at 5.30pm, with the stream available a few minutes beforehand.

The agenda items will be published on the council’s website today, April 28.

Meetings of committees, council and cabinet have been suspended since the government’s stay at home instructions were introduced in March.

This is because of laws which said meetings at which decisions are made, and votes taken, had to happen face-to-face with elected members all at the same location.

However, the government has changed legislation to allow remote meetings to take place.

Before the virus outbreak, councillors said that it would be too expensive for the authority to stream its meetings online.

Coun Swift added: “I am grateful to our democratic services and ICT teams for the work they’ve done to make this happen.

“So many HBC staff had had to adapt to new working practices to ensure services are delivered and they have responded with great enthusiasm.”

By Jacob Webster, Local Democracy Reporter

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