09.06.20
CASE STUDY: Birmingham City Council tackle online meetings
Emma Williamson – Head of Scrutiny Services at Birmingham City Council
Birmingham City Council held an online Extraordinary Meeting of the Full Council, with 80 members, on 28th April. The Council have now held 15 meetings via Microsoft Teams, including Licensing hearings, Scrutiny meetings and Cabinet meetings.
As the impact of Covid-19 became clear, Birmingham City Council officers from democratic services and IT formed a project group to propose a way forward for formal meetings to take place remotely.
The technical challenge the IT team was set was to find a solution that enabled over 100 participants to be in a meeting, with audio and video, and that allowed meetings to be livestreamed, recorded and subsequently uploaded to our website.
The solution development stage looked at multiple technologies from different providers encompassing both audio and video conferencing. Microsoft Teams had been rolled out across the organisation in the months before the lockdown, and officers were becoming accustomed to using it for internal meetings. And although members had not used it extensively, it had been rolled out to them so was already loaded on their laptops. However, it didn’t satisfy all of the requirements in it’s out of the box configuration. Microsoft were consulted and the discussions resulted in testing a hybrid Teams Meeting and Live Event solution.
We also worked with our webcasting contractor, Civico, who take the Live Event stream and play it through their website, ensuring that members of the public could access meetings in the same that they always have done.
Training Members
Once the solution had been tested, we set about providing training for members. Guidance was produced but more effectively, members’ “chat room” sessions were held – over several weeks (Birmingham has 99 members at the present time) – for members to “drop in” and test their connections, use of the different functions and practice with the voting forms.
The Extraordinary Meeting of the Full Council
The feedback from the meeting was positive – though no-one thinks this approach will replace face to face meetings long term! Whilst the agenda was short, just two items, it took a lot of preparation to get right. The resources needed to make it happen should not be underestimated – with input from members, democratic services officers and an IT team in support.
We also used Ms Forms for voting, which worked well in giving a clear vote; we shared the overall results on screen. It also gave us the option to show names on the screen as required.
A second Full Council meeting is planned for 9th June – again with a shortened agenda but now including the opportunity for members to ask questions to Cabinet Members.
Lessons Learned
The main lessons learned were:
Preparing the members and supporting the chairs is key – running these meetings is harder than a physical meeting and demands a fresh approach.
Participants need to be encouraged join the meeting early to check their connection – regardless of how many times you do it, there can always be hiccups or local connection problems.
Everyone needs a clear understanding of how the meetings will be held, their roles and how to interact with the Chair and each other.
Testing, testing, testing!
The future
We will continue to schedule on-line meetings throughout May and June – we’re now exploring the use of video (initial meetings were audio only) including the use of a corporate background to give a consistent view.
The next challenge will be so-called “hybrid” meetings – whereby some members are present in the Council Chamber and others join via remote means. As the lockdown eases, more members will want to come into the Council House, whereas others must stay shielded.
We also await the Government’s next move on this – there have long been calls from some members for remote voting, to support members to work more flexibly. However, the regulations that currently permit this expire in May 2021.
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