Essex County Council opt for Audiominutes

PRESS RELEASE

Look out for a new development taking place in some of our council meetings from this month.

At our Cabinet meeting on Tuesday 23 June we will launch a new audio broadcasting system which will stream the sound from debates as they unfold.

This means people who cannot attend can still hear the meeting ‘live’ over the internet or pick it up afterwards. So if you want to listen you can do so when you want and from where you want.

We piloted a video system several years ago but this proved too expensive to maintain – in contrast, this audio system allows us to keep the cost of improving the accessibility of public meetings very low.

During and after meetings, recordings will be available easily alongside meeting details and agendas. Until we finish setting up a new channel on our website to make it easier, you will be able to find them by clicking on ‘Your Council’, then ‘Meetings and Agendas’ and clicking on a meeting in the meetings calendar. You will also be able to jump straight to a specific agenda item, if that is all you want to hear again.

We plan to broadcast Cabinet first on 23 June and from Full Council on 14 July.

Committees of the council will start to come online one by one during this time as the chairmen are ready.

The new system has been provided by an Essex firm. Confabulate, based in Saffron Walden. They are a new company with a product called Audiominutes which has the added benefit of being designed to integrate with social media. You can look out for tweets with links to the audio stream at the beginning of each meeting on the @ECC_DemSer twitter feed.

For further information, please contact Sophie Campion, Corporate Governance Officer, Sophie.campion@essex.gov.uk or Alex Polak, Scrutiny and Corporate Governance Manager, alex.polak@essex.gov.uk