2018-12-11 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                              11 DECEMBER 2018


2.   Confidential sessions - as Council is aware, a local government has the ability to close its
     meeting to discuss certain types of matters in confidential session. The types of matters for
     which a Council can close its meeting are prescribed in the Local Government Regulation.
     The Council is unable to make a decision in confidential session but can discuss the matter
     while the meeting is closed to the public. Historically, our Council does not use confidential
     sessions on a regular basis, particularly compared to other local governments. (According to
     statistics collated by OSCAR, Noosa Shire Council has had 13 confidential sessions between
     April 2016 and September 2018. Sunshine Coast Council has had 170 confidential session
     in the same period).

     However, we will need to make provision for this to occur in those rare circumstances where
     we need to have a confidential discussion at a Council or Committee meeting. What will occur
     in practice is to have a message that appears on the video screen while the meeting is closed
     and also turn off the audio. When the meeting is re-opened, the audio and camera are turned
     back on. This is simply an additional process that we would need to go through in those
     circumstances where we close the meeting to the public.

3.   Council Chambers and/or Committee Room - the recommendation is that in the first instance,
     we install live audio streaming equipment only in the Council Chambers until we are confident
     that our system works. Currently, Council undertakes its General Committee meeting and
     Ordinary Meeting in the Council Chambers. Meetings of the Planning and Environment
     Committee, and Services and Organisation Committee are undertaken in Council’s
     Committee Room. There are some options available to Council. We could shift the meetings
     of the Planning and Environment Committee, and Services and Organisation Committee to
     the Council Chambers. Alternatively, we could install additional equipment in the Committee
     Room to live video stream meetings being held in that location. The costings in this report do
     not include the cost of installing live video streaming equipment in the Committee Room.
     That room has different characteristics from the Council Chambers as the meeting table is
     not fixed in place and therefore has no easy accessibility to central USB ports for the required
     audio equipment.

     There are certainly arguments for and against in relation to streaming the Planning and
     Environment Committee, and Services and Organisation Committee meetings but on
     balance, the recommendation is to live video stream those meetings currently held in the
     Council Chambers (the General Committee and Ordinary Meeting) at this stage and then to
     revisit the issue in 6 months. At that stage, Council can determine whether or not the system
     is working well and whether to either:
     (i)    Install equivalent technology in the Committee Room to allow live video streaming of
            the other Committees;
     (ii) Shift the location of the other Committees from the Committee Room to the Council
            Chambers; or
     (iii) Continue to live video stream only the General Committee and Ordinary Meeting.

4.   The role of Council minutes – one of the most important issues for the Council and community
     to be aware of is that a video/audio recording of the Council meeting is not the final
     record of the meeting. Only the Council meeting minutes are the official record of the
     meeting.




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