‘Virtual’ North Kesteven council meetings begin

A month on from the cancellation of all meetings scheduled for March and April in order to comply with social distancing requirements and help reduce the spread of the coronavirus, meetings are able to resume – albeit in a very different format.

The Government has given councils new powers to hold public meetings ‘virtually’, using technology including electronic, digital, virtual locations and telephone conferencing. 

With the technology and understanding now developed to enable this, the first of these will take place for North Kesteven on Thursday, April 23, with a 2pm meeting of the full council.

The authority’s Leader, Coun Richard Wright said: “As a council, we are keen to resume council business as quickly as possible. By embracing this new way of holding meetings we will be able to, as members still honour our duties and speak on behalf of our constituents.”

He said: “In this ‘new world’, members and officers will learn together how to hold virtual meetings, whilst also ensuring residents and the local media can listen-in, and be a part of the process.

“Participating in remote meetings is very different to holding a physical meeting in person. The team are prepared to face some challenges and officers will need to further develop some practical solutions to support virtual meetings going forward,” said Coun Wright.

To ensure safe and sound decisions are conducted from the outset, the Leader of the Council, Leader of the Opposition and unaligned councillors (not part of a political group) have all agreed to reduce the number of members present on these virtual council committees, to aid the management and connectivity of meetings. 

Membership changes are in accordance with political balance requirements and will continue to ensure constituents are represented appropriately.

In order to accommodate these changes, while still remaining inclusive, some meetings, and items of business may need to be moved. 

The first virtual council can be heard live on Thursday, April 23 at 2pm via the council website: www.n-kesteven.gov.uk/Council23April 

The council plans to run further virtual meetings over the coming weeks, including planning and licensing sub-committees. Further information on these will be published in due course online at www.n-kesteven.gov.uk

The district council is not the first authority to have leapt into the new realm of virtual meetings, as Wilsford Parish Council met on Tuesday night (April 14) via the Zoom video conferencing facility.

Council clerk Denise Gascoyne said: “We had a couple of dummy runs but this was the first time we had used Zoom for a virtual meeting of the Parish Council. The start was slightly delayed for technical reasons but we got all the Ccuncillors, and our District Councillor Russell Jackson, on board and by and large it went pretty well.

“We had advertised how people in Wilsford could join the meeting but in the event only Jacky Scott-Coombes logged on. Jacky has done a tremendous job in forming a data base of volunteers and matching them with anybody who might want help with shopping or collecting prescriptions or just having a comforting phone call. Jacky raised the possibility of opening a kitchen for those who might need hot meals but after discussion we decided that initially we should give publicity to Age UK’s programme of 21 meals for £20 and the Parish Council will distribute leaflets advertising this facility.

“Otherwise, the meeting went through the usual agenda, though the Covid-19 restrictions mean that some of the events we had previously been following, like Wilsfest and the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of VE Day, are now cancelled. In accordance with instructions from the National Association of Local Councils, the Annual Meeting, usually held in May, will not take place so the next meeting of Wilsford Parish Council will be on Tuesday June 9. If restrictions are still in place this will again be a virtual meeting but people in Wilsford will be very welcome to attend.