The leader of Northampton Borough Council has pledged to alter the authority’s rules to allow residents to film Guildhall meetings.
Last week, the Chron was admonished by the council for tweeting a photograph during a council meeting and on Tuesday this week, a member of the public was threatened with being thrown out of another meeting after he tried to record the proceedings on his mobile phone.
In response to such incidents, local government minister, Eric Pickles, has today published new guidance which explicitly states that councils should allow the public to record meetings.
Responding to some authorities in the country trying to use data protection and health and safety legislation to ban recordings, he said: “I want to stand up for the rights of journalists and taxpayers to scrutinise and challenge decisions of the state.
“Data protection rules or health and safety should not be used to suppress reporting or a healthy dose of criticism.
“Modern technology has created a new cadre of bloggers and hyper-local journalists and councils should open their digital doors and not cling to analogue interpretations of council rules.”
The new laws allow citizens to report, blog, tweet and film council meetings in England.
Northampton Borough Council’s constitution currently bans “the taking of photographs of any proceedings, or the use of any means to enable persons not present to see or hear any proceedings without the express consent of the council having first been obtained”.
But following Mr Pickles’ announcement, the leader of the authority, Councillor David Mackintosh (Con, Rectory Farm) said he would get the rules changed.
He said: “We support any move to encourage more people to take an interest in local democracy and get involved in the work we’re doing to improve our town.
“As technology advances it’s important that we look at how we can support new media.
“We welcome the new Government guidance and will be looking at amending our constitution to embrace these changes.”