The decision to live stream the Highway and Traffic Orders Committee (HATOC) meeting is stated as being on safety grounds. I would be grateful to see the health and safety advice on this.
The Council places additional resources into livestreaming to ensure as many people as would wish to do so can view the meeting, either live or after the event.
The Council has a duty to ensure staff, members and visitors are safe. The Council has reviewed the way in which it operates its meetings resulting in revised working practices being implemented to ensure the safety of members, staff and visitors when attending meetings. A copy of the review is linked here: Security and Safety at Devon County Council Committee Meetings.
The Committee meeting was open to and held in public in compliance with the Local Government Act 1972. However, on a practical / logistical level, in a room of a certain size, there will always be a limit on the numbers of attendees; in the Daw Room 20-seats is the largest number of seats that can be accommodated in the room and allow for access and egress. The Exeter HATOC meeting had a full public gallery with no other available seats left in the committee room.
Subsection 8 does not apply in this case.
In terms of the Health and Safety advice, there were a number of factors and hazards taken into account when this decision was made including: threats of public disorder, verbal abuse, fire risk, slips, trips and falls, accessibility and injuries from crowds. There are a number of mitigations in place such as security at meetings, building access control measures and maximum capacity of people in the committee rooms, which has also considered the evacuation and exit routes and support to disabled individuals to safely evacuate/exit, and also takes into account the occupancy of the entire committee suite corridor.
The Council has a duty to ensure staff, members and visitors are safe. This duty necessitates the regular review of how it operates. As a result of such a review working practices were amended to enable it to provide a safe environment for members, staff and visitors when they attend meetings. A copy of the Public Committee Meetings at County Hall Risk Assessment can be seen on our website.
Please note that information that has been greyed out from the above linked document is exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Personal Data). Devon County Council can confirm the requested information is held; however, the Council cannot disclose personal information if releasing it would contravene any of the provisions in the UK General Data Protection Regulation. In this instance release of this information would contravene the first data protection principle and therefore the information is withheld.