Issue - meetings

Report of the Democratic & Electoral Services Manager

The Committee gave consideration to the report as set out on pages 10-15 of the agenda, which asked it to approve the Committee’s participation in a pilot of paperless meetings, commencing with a ‘paper light’ meeting on Tuesday 5 March 2019. Subject to the success of the pilot, it was proposed that the paperless approach be extended to all Council and Committee meetings on a phased basis.

Members welcomed the opportunity to undertake the pilot and recognised the potential benefits that this could deliver in terms of reducing the Council’s carbon footprint, improving Member IT skills, delivering cost savings and freeing up Officer time for other areas of Member support.

To ensure that Members were adequately prepared to undertake the pilot, it was requested that in advance of the March meeting Officers should contact each Member of the Committee to confirm that they possess a device capable of running the Modern.gov app through which the agenda papers will be delivered. It was also requested that a user guide for the app be provided to all Members to provide instruction on how to make best use of the various annotation tools available.

It was agreed that an Officer from Democratic Services would be in attendance in the Committee Room from one hour before the start of the March meeting to offer any pre-meeting support required in setting up and using the Modern.gov app.

It was moved by the Chair, seconded by B Dave and

UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED THAT:

(i)       The next meeting of Change Management Committee scheduled for Tuesday, 5 March 2019 be designated as a pilot ‘paper light’ meeting;

(ii)     The first meeting of Change Management Committee in the 2019/20 Municipal Year be designated as a pilot ‘paperless’ meeting;

(iii)   Subject to the success of the above pilots, a phased Council-wide transition to paperless meetings be implemented, with the timetable to be agreed in consultation with Committee Chairs; and

(iv)    That the Council’s intention to purchase the Modern.gov restricted app to facilitate the transition to paperless meetings be noted.