On the 25th of March 2014 Cambridgeshire County Councillors voted on if details of how they have voted at meetings ought be published. I obtained the voting record by filming the screens at the meeting which display the votes cast to those present and am publishing below a list of those councillors who voted against [...]
On the 13th of February 2014 I streamed a meeting of Cambridge City Council’s full council live on YouTube. I believe this is the first time one of Cambridge City Council’s meetings has been “broadcast” live. As well as being available live, the videos are available to watch again: Part One Public questions and petitions: [...]
I decided to observe Huntingdonshire District Council’s full council on Wednesday the 26th of June 2013. I was particularly interested in hearing the debate to be led by Police and Crime Commissioner Graham Bright who was scheduled to speak to the council and take questions from councillors. Prior to attending I looked up the council’s [...]
Since November 2012, when Police Authorities were abolished and Police and Crime Commissioners introduced, I have been making regular Freedom of Information requests for the meeting papers of Cambridgeshire Police’s Force Executive Board. While the Police Authority was in existence information on proposed significant changes to policing would be pro-actively published online in Police Authority [...]
FOI Request – Cambridge Magistrates Court List Information While the doors of our adult courts in the UK are unlocked and anyone can just walk in and observe what’s going on they don’t effectively operate in an open and transparent manner. Our courts fail to pro-actively and openly publish information about what they are doing. [...]
On the 21st of November I went to Huntingdon where a a meeting of Cambridgeshire’s Shadow Police and Crime Panel was scheduled to take place. A meeting paper gave the “title/purpose” of the meeting as “Meet the Commissioner”. The meeting was listed online as being “private”, however in my view it met the legal definition [...]
A Holistic View Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s Police and Crime Commissioner should provide strategic direction not just for the police, but for the work of the courts, prison and probation services, local councils and other bodies with an impact on policing, crime and justice matters in the area; including schools and health service providers. The creation [...]
Police and Crime Panel Members Key Points Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Panel met for the first time, in shadow form, in secret, behind closed doors, on the 12th of September 2012. The panel is called a shadow panel until it formally becomes the Police and Crime Panel following election of Police and Crime Commissioners. The [...]
I have submitted the following message to the council’s democratic services email address, copying Councillor Tim Bick: 1. If a suitably less restrictive filming policy is adopted during the Thursday 19th April 2012 full council meeting I would like to film/photograph the council meeting from the point the new policy is adopted. I’d like to [...]
Cambridge City Council’s Civic Affairs Committee on the 21st of March 2012 is to review the city council’s currently highly restrictive policy on filming, recording and photographing council meetings. The report to the meeting contains the following statement: Since the Committee approved the amendments to the audio/visual recording protocol in February 2011, there have been [...]