Bristol City Council to livestream more meetings in £1m upgrade

Bristol City Council hopes the livestreaming will lead to greater transparency

More Bristol City Council meetings will be livestreamed following a proposed £1m IT upgrade.

The council said this will make the new committee system, which comes into force after May's local elections to replace the mayoral model, more transparent.

It added that it will also allow more people to attend and have their say.

Local politics activists have previously criticised the council for failing to livestream many committees.

In one instance, a resident even took a video camera and tripod to record meetings, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Only full council, cabinet, planning committees and one scrutiny board, held in the main chamber, are currently made available to watch live online or on playback on the organisation's YouTube channel.

Voters in Bristol decided to scrap the post of elected mayor in a referendum

Neighbouring authorities, including South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset, routinely webcast all public committees through an external provider.

Bristol City Council's cabinet approved the £1m investment, plus £75,000 annual running costs on Tuesday.

A report to the meeting said the company that wins the contract will install new equipment in City Hall's council chamber, along with about half of the building's meeting rooms and the incident management room at its offices in Temple Street.

Residents voted to scrap the role of a directly elected mayor at a citywide referendum two years ago.

It will be replaced by a system of cross-party, decision-making committees from next month.

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