I Suffer with a hearing Disability, what are the rules for the recording of meetings in Private Session

Question

I am a Parish Councillor with a hearing disability what are the rules especially when relating to the Equality Act and reasonable adjustment

Answer 1

There is no absolute prohibition on the recording of confidential business. The legislation permits the council to determine whether or not such procedures should be adopted. If you have a valid reason for recording that part of a meeting, you should ask the council to permit you to do so. Needless to say, you should take all necessary steps to ensure that the confidential recording is not made available to others.

Answer 2

You can audio / video record whether open or closed session.  What you shouldn't do (unless it can be proven to be in the public interest) is to reveal any part of a closed meeting which properly fulfils the requirement for confidentiality.

Real world experience shows that there is much content in a closed session which cannot under any circumstances be properly classified as confidential and therefore should not be conducted in a closed session.

Councils that don't want (but cannot prevent) the recording of a closed session are probably concerned that the cat will get out of the bag and misuse of the exclusion of press and public will be documented.