a) What funding has Devon County Council received from central government to broadcast its meetings online via Zoom since the start of broadcasting its meetings virtually on 18 May 2020, including the costs incurred in setting up previous to the first meeting, to the end of these broadcast July 8 2021?
No funding has been received from central government in relation to broadcasting meetings; however we received over £43.5m via the general Covid-19 support grant to use as required
b) How much did virtual Devon County Council meetings cost to put forward between May 2020 and July 8 2021? Please specify:
I) each individual cost such as Zoom subscriptions, hardware (microphones, TVs, covid protective shields etc), use of council officers, etc.
ii) the date when each of these costs occurred, and iii) the overall cost of holding council meetings virtually from May 2020 to July 8 2021.
Devon County Council does not use Zoom and has made use of existing Microsoft technology for virtual meetings via the Office 365 subscription, including Teams. The live streaming of all meetings was also done via teams (live event function) and advertised as a link and uploaded to the existing webcasting microsite (public i). Existing camera’s in Committee rooms used to webcast (public i) were reconfigured to support hybrid meetings. No money has been spent on virtual meetings technology between these dates. Records show that no extra costs have been incurred.
c) Are councillors and officers looking into options for permanently making all council meetings available to be accessed by the public virtually? If so:
I) What are the options the council has considered?
ii) how much would each of these options cost?
iii) how long would they take to be implemented?
iiiI) what funding options have the council and officers considered to pay for each of these virtual streaming options?
Yes, but it will operate as a hybrid model in all probability. The technology was already in place to facilitate this using Teams hence the Council is already running meetings on this basis with the public able to join virtually if they chose to do so, but Committee members (for those committees which fall under the Local Government Act) currently have to be in person (unless Government legislates on this matter in the future which is likely). The public can also attend in person if they wish. It is our plan to live stream all main committee meetings moving forward (from September) so including some of the smaller Committees like Farms / Audit / Investment and Pension Fund etc. Again with the technology we already had in place, we can operate hybrid models of meetings or fully virtual meetings