Council's £18,000 bill to stream meetings

Since the introduction of webcasts by Rotherham Borough Council in September 2014, there have been 16,823 views of 201 meetings.

Full council meetings and various committees are put live online to allow people to see proceedings.

The contract costs the council £18,000 a year with the service provided by Public-i.

Since last May the webcasts have received 3,745 views of 57 webcasts.

The figures show that an average of 83 people viewed each webcast though some received bigger audiences than others.

A council spokesperson said: “We introduced webcasting in 2014 as part of the council’s commitment to ensure openness and transparency, and to help people see and hear how local decisions are made.

“It is also in line with government guidance which recommends that council meetings are opened up to filming, or be webcast, in the interests of democracy.

“Since then we have had almost 17,000 webcast views, covering over 200 meetings, opening up local democracy to people who would not have previously attended meetings in person.

“If they’ve not already done so, we would encourage local people to have a look at the webcasting website, to find out more about local decisions and the work of the council.”

The webcasts can be viewed at https://rotherham.public-i.tv/core/portal/home.