School Forum Filming Ban Is “Fantasy” Committee Chair Says
Ban on filming public meeting because it “just feels wrong” branded “fantasy” by education lead
A ban on filming a public education meeting at Bristol City Council has been branded “fantasy” by the Chair of Children and Young People Committee.
A row broke out at Bristol Schools Forum on Tuesday 26 November after the meeting’s chair – backed by Bristol City Council Democratic Services – refused to allow the meeting to be filmed. Then insisted any filmed footage must be subject to an embargo.
Chair of Bristol Schools Forum Steve Hornsby – Chair of North Star 240° Trust – refused to allow a member of the public to film the public meeting.
Hornsby told the public: “This is a meeting of volunteers who are coming together to try and help Bristol Schools. It just feels wrong.”
School forums are meetings that scrutinse education matters and have responsibility for some financial decisions surrounding the city’s millions of pounds worth of education funding. It must be accessible to members of the public.
At Children and Young People Policy Committee, Dan Ackroyd said: “I believe it is in the public interest for those meetings to be webcast where possible. I also am quite disappointed the last meeting was not webcast. It is a public meeting. I went along to record it for the benefit of other people and it was quite disgraceful that officers were telling me it was not lawful to record it.
“I’d like to remind councillors and officers that when they give instructions to members of the public they are part of the state. There is a threat of force being used against them if they disobey instructions from people of the state, which is not really an acceptable situation. So I really hope you can communicate with the Chair of the Schools Forum and persuade him that a lot of people are interested in the meetings, they are public meetings and members should not be too surprised when those meetings are recorded and broadcast.”
Chair of Children and Young People Committee, Councillor Christine Townsend replied: “I agree that school forum is a public meeting. It’s in statutory legislation. I have today taken up what happened last night and the problem with that is that then becomes the thing that people are talking about as opposed to some of the other things that happened in schools forum that actually is more indicative of what’s going on in Bristol.
“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.”
More information about Bristol Schools Forum can be found here: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/business/schools-learning-and-early-years-for-professionals/schools-forum
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