A new style of council meeting

Tomorrow morning (Monday 20 April) I will chair the first of KCC's public meetings to be held virtually, with a Cabinet Briefing at 10 am.

Since the Covid-19 shutdown, the council has been running at full tilt to respond to the crisis, and like many organisations we have been able to operate effectively through remote meetings. Cabinet Members and senior officers have been working in this way for weeks. However, formal public meetings - such as public Cabinet meetings, or Council committees - have yet to work in this way. Government guidance making this possible - by relaxing the rules on, for example, the need for a quorum of Members to be physically present - was only published on 3 April. We have also had to work on ensuring that the more demanding technological requirements for a public meeting are in place. As Leader, I asked the Council's officers to undertake the necessary steps to make this possible and tomorrow the first meeting takes place.

The meeting will not be a formal public Cabinet, with full papers and agenda, but something of a hybrid: a public Cabinet briefing, comprising an updates from each Cabinet Member on recent activity within their portfolio, and an update from the Director of Public Health, Andrew Scott-Clark, followed by Cabinet Members answering questions put by non-executive Members.

The following Monday (27 April) will see a formal public Cabinet, for which the agenda has been published. 

You can find the link to tomorrow's meeting, and other details in this KCC media release.