Council webcasting policy not as confused as we thought (I think)

The Cornwall Council meeting of 7th September is now available for all to see. The amendment from councillor Mike Eathorne-Gibbons, which sought to limit expansion of the webcasting project, was carried by 44 votes to 37. It also limited the meetings which can be covered to full Council and to Cabinet. The crucial part of the amendment was paragraph (b), which appears to have survived intact:

"arrangements include the Trelawney Room so that meetings of Cabinet are webcast from October 2010."

The Trelawney Room does not yet have webcasting facilities, but I don't see how any rational interpretation of these words could mean anything other than that these facilities should now be installed. As the council's top lawyer, Richard Williams, observed at the meeting:

"It just means the equipment necessary to webcast the Cabinet meetings will have to be installed in the Trelawney Room."

A consequence of this is that the crucial Cabinet emergency budget meeting on 13th October should be covered live on the web. Bizarrely, the resolution means the new webcasting facilities in the Trelawney Room will be used only for Cabinet meetings and not for planning, which is often where councillors would benefit from greater scrutiny.