Recording of Meetings
Recording of meetings is allowed to enable those not present to see or hear the proceedings either as they take place (or later) and to enable the reporting of those proceedings. A copy of the recording protocol is available from the Town Clerk.
Use of Recordings by Third Parties - Code of Practice:
- Any published recording should be accompanied by a statement of when and where the recording was made, the context of the discussion that took place, and a clear identification of the main speakers and their role or title.
- Those making recordings must not edit the recording in a way that could lead to misinterpretation of the proceedings or comments made by attendees. In particular there should be no internal editing of published extracts; recordings may start at any point and end at any point.
Public Participation
Wetherby Town Council wishes to encourage participation during its Full Council meetings in order to use this as one means of consulting with the public.
However, the Council recognises that rules must control the manner of participation in order that the Council Meeting may continue to operate effectively.
Public participation is an opportunity to ask question not to make statements.
Accordingly the following rules must be observed for public participation at meetings:
- Public participation will take place at every full Town Council meeting.
- Public participation will take place at the beginning of the meeting at 7 pm and will last for a maximum period of 15 minutes.
- Each member of the public will be allowed a maximum of 3 minutes to ask a question.
- The Mayor will determine in what order members of the public will be allowed to ask their questions, having regard to who has previously asked questions at that meeting and previous meetings, who arrived at the meeting first, and whether questions to be asked are the same or similar to other questions already asked.
In allowing public participation the Council is aware that this forms only one means of consultation with the public, and that no decisions other than undertaking further research or writing to relevant bodies can be taken at the meeting where the matters is raised.
In answer to questions about services the Town Council provides answers where possible at the meeting. If this is not possible a written response will be given to the questioner within 14 days of the meeting, the contents of which will be relayed to the next Town Council meeting.