One day after Noosa Council’s Special Meeting on Friday May 29th, I checked the Council video site.
Only four people had watched the meeting video. Which begs the question: Did anyone know the meeting was on?
The agenda was no doubt on the Council website two days in advance in conformity with the local government legislation, but you’d need to know to look for it, and even then it’s hard to find.
It reminded me of the 19th century poser by Bishop George Berkeley, usually paraphrased as, “If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
It would be a shame if all the work of Noosa Council to improve its openness and transparency was diluted by a lack of awareness of when its meetings are held.
After all, transparency is not just about making information available; it’s about letting people know when and where to find it.
To be fair, mayor Clare Stewart posted a note on her Facebook page the day before, advertising the meeting time and topic.
But she was the lone communicator. There was no alert on the Noosa Council Facebook page nor on the Facebook pages of the other six councillors.
So just four people tuned in – either during the meeting or on the day after.
Admittedly much of the meeting had to be behind closed doors (it involved an application under court appeal) but the law requires that council voting be open, so the last part of the meeting was videoed – proposing the motion, the speeches made, and the final vote. Still worth viewing and knowing about.
Noosa Council should really be more active in letting the Shire know about its meetings and their agendas.
In fact, the Queensland Information Commissioner, whose office audits government communications under the Right to Information Act, recommends a push communication approach.
“The push model requires agencies to proactively push information out to the community, as much as possible.”
This means reaching out to let people know, not just placing information somewhere and hoping it will be found (or perhaps hoping it won’t be found).
When still a councillor in June last year, I placed a motion on the Noosa Council agenda which proposed a range of initiatives to enhance transparency, including that Council should alert the public before its meetings, and after them so they could find out what had transpired.
I proposed that the Council publicise meetings in a variety of ways, including through “prominent display on Council’s website, social media and newspapers, highlighting agenda topics and providing links to agendas, attachments and the live streaming web page, and after meetings, publicise the links to meeting notes, minutes and archived meeting videos.”
The councillors voted to defer my motion for two months, at which point this particular item disappeared.
So Noosa council staff are still not adequately publicising council meetings.
And yet it’s so easy to paste hyperlinks into Facebook posts, emails or websites and so keep people informed.
Introducing videoing and live streaming of Council meetings was a giant step towards increasing council transparency.
But many other steps remain.
They include ensuring that people are given every opportunity to know there’s information available for them – often important information.
People are unlikely to scramble around the Council website to find hidden meeting agendas or view a meeting video, especially when it has fallen silently in the forest.
This is a missing piece in the council transparency jigsaw puzzle that would be so easy to put in place.
Well said Ingrid. I have asked that notice of meetings be published on Council’s Facebook page in the past, and I recall asking you to follow it up, which I am sure you did.I miss your attention to letting people know the meeting dates, times and attention. Council’s social media policies and practice need to change to meet the expectations and needs of residents.
NOOSA COUNCIL MEETING STATISTICS
Here are the YouTube viewing numbers of Council meetings from 18 February 2019 to 29 May 2020
2019
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 18 February 2019
245
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 21 February 2019
320
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 7 March 2019
110
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 18 March 2019
1200
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 19 March 2020
102
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 21 March 2019
303
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 15 April 2019 (Part 2 – Items 2 – 9)
183
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 18 April 2019
382
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 13 May 2019
106
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting (Cooran Hall) – 16 May 2019
137
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 22 May 2019
38
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 5 June 2019
49
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 17 June 2019
125
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 20 June 2019
166
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 28 June 2019
164
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 15 July 2019
377
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 18 July 2019
132
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 12 August 2019
188
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 15 August 2019
300
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 12 September 2019
410
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 16 September 2019 (Part 1)
83
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 16 September 2019 (Part 2)
140
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 30 September 2019
198
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 14 October 2019
447
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting (Federal Hall) – 17 October 2019
185
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 28 October 2019
153
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 18 November 2019
144
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 21 November 2019
161
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 28 November 2019
45
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 11 December 2019
814
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 16 December 2019 (Part 1)
155
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 16 December 2019 (Part 2)
147
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 16 December 2019
51
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 19 December 2019
65
2020
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 13 January 2020
161
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 14 February 2019
443
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 17 February 2020
267
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 20 February 2020 (Part 1)
53
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 20 February 2020 (Part 2)
100
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting 16 March 2020
118
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 30 April 2020
359
Noosa Council Planning & Environment Committee Meeting – 12 May 2020
97
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 13 May 2020
138
Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 18 May 2020
131
Noosa Council Ordinary Meeting – 21 May 2020
34
Noosa Council Special Meeting – 29 May 2020
141
AVERAGES
Meetings averaged 216 viewers.
This meeting: Noosa Council General Committee Meeting – 18 March 2019, I think on the flight paths, had 1,200 views. Without this figure, meetings would have averaged 189.
So, say around 200 views per meeting. This is views, not viewers, since it is impossible to count individuals who may have viewed more than once.
All the meeting dates for the year ahead are posted on the Council website, as are Agendas for all meetings, as are Minutes or Notes.
I watched most of these meetings and I know that the low numbers mentioned in the article above were pretty common while the meetings were in progress. However, checking the figures a week or so later showed a lot more viewings. My guess is that people just took their time to watch. Note that the Special Meeting 29 May, had only four viewers when the writer tuned in, but has to date had 141 viewers.
So, what constitutes poor ratings? You can see a trend, in that meetings with controversial agendas tend to get higher viewer numbers. But, after all, council business is not on most resident’s list of interests. I’m not sure more publicity is the answer. The old saying, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink” comes to mind.