Bristol News

Bristol Schools Forum Backs Down On Recording Row

The public meeting was filmed and made available online after the democracy row last year

Bristol Schools Forum has filmed its first meeting of the new year through YouTube – and left the recording available for members of the public to watch.

It comes after a row at the end of 2024, when a member of the public was told not to record.

The attempt to stop the recording of the public meeting was later branded as “fantasy” by the Chair of Children and Young People Committee Councillor Christine Townsend.

At December’s meeting of Children and Young People, Townsend said: ““The idea that a public meeting is somehow different because it’s school forum as opposed to another type of public meeting is fantasy in my view and I will be following that up.”

In the previous meeting of Bristol Schools Forum on Tuesday 26 November 2024, Chair of the forum Steve Hornsby attempted to stop a member of the public from filming the meeting, supported in his stance by a Bristol City Council Democracy Officer.

Hornsby’s reasoning for stopping members of the public from filming was because “It just feels wrong.”

@chopsybristoltt

Bristol City Council Democratic Services and Bristol Schools Forum Chair try to stop a member of the public from filming the public meeting because it ‘felt wrong’. The Forum scrutinses education budgets in Bristol and makes decisions on the movement of millions of pounds of education funding #bristolcitycouncil #bristol #bristollife #coverup #bristolpolitics #politics #politicstiktok #sendtiktok #sendtok #educationfunding #education #send #specialeducationalneeds #sendfunds #bristolsend #bristoltiktok #bristoltok #democracy

? original sound – ChopsyBristol
Bristol Schools Forum Chair attempts to stop members of the public from filming meetings last year

Papers for the meeting held on Wednesday 15 January 2025 addressed the recording issue. They referred to the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2024, which protects the rights of those attending meetings to take photographs, film, audio record and report.

At Schools Forum last week Hornsby said: “We had a little learning experience last time around to film or not to film and I think the answer is to film. So we are being recorded.”

A Democratic Services Officer added: “We are being recorded. It would normally be a webcast but unfortunately we’re not webcasting today but we’re recording.”

More Bristol News from Chopsy Bristol
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChopsyBristol
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/chopsybaby
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chopsybristol.bsky.social
TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@chopsybristoltt