Can a dictaphone be used to record meetings open to the public?

Question

I'm concerned regarding accuracy of minutes. Public Comment speakers are frequently mis-represented by omission or addition.

Answer 1

It's harder to answer that question than it might appear!

Although council meetings must be held in public, the law states that they may not be recorded without the council's permission.

However, there is a question as to whether the public comments take place during the meeting, or whether they are outside the meeting - either before the meeting or in a period where the meeting has been adjourned.

If the comments are made during the meeting, then you would need the council's permission to record.  If outside the meeting, then so far as I can see, you can do as you please.

Standing back from the legalities, if there is concern about the way public comments are stated in the council's minutes, then I would have thought that a reasonable council would give its permission for the public session to be recorded.  Or even made into a video recording and placed on YouTube so everyone can see what was said!

Answer 2

Further to Counterpoint's comments; may I had the following:-

1) I think that technically the public comment part is outside the meeting to the extent that the meeting is actually adjourned for the public to speak and subsequently re-convened. I am not sure that the council is empowered therefore to authorise recording of the public speaking part.

2) Comments made by the public need not be minuted at all and if they are the Clerk needs to be mindful of repeating (and thereby publishing) what could be false claims which might not be subject to challenge at the time.

3) In the UK, it is in many circumstances, illegal to record statements or conversations without first informing the speaker that they are to be recorded.

 

Comments

Thanks for the excellent follow up points from Swancott.  I'd just add that although it has been common to adjourn meetings to allow the public to speak, the council on which I serve has recently changed its standing orders so that the chairman has discretion to allow a member of the public to speak at any point in the meeting.  There is still a public session which is the preferred time for public contributions, but it is now regarded as part of the meeting, with the chairman exercising the power newly added to standing orders to permit members of the public to speak.

The drawback to adjourning the meeting for public contributions is that once it is done, it is not obvious that there are any rules at all, or that the chairman has any authority.  You could invent standing orders for the period while the council meeting is adjourned, but it seemed simpler to retain all the normal standing orders, just giving the chairman authority to allow (or reject, terminate, etc) public contributions within the standard framework.

---

You raise a couple of good points here, Counterpoint and I had not considered them. Our Council do not currently permit public cotributions outside the prescribed period but I am prompted to discuss the points you make with our Clerk. Thanks.