'Unacceptable' problems with online streaming of Bedford Borough Council meetings

Borough councillors vented their frustration with the council video conferencing system when a “short meeting” was delayed and extended due to technical issues.

Monday’s planning committee meeting (August 15) was told that the audio problems were “not acceptable”.

Committee chair, councillor Jonathan Abbott (LibDems, Oakley) said: “No one can hear us through the system at the moment.

“This is not good,” he added.

Councillor Abbott later said he received a message from an officer attending remotely that he couldn’t hear any of the debate.

Someone from the support team replied: “We are chasing this up with Public-i [the system providers], we’ll let you know as soon as we have an update.”

“We’ll be through with the application by then,” councillor Abbott said.

It was then discovered that the applicant, who was also attending remotely, couldn’t hear anything.

“I’m very very disappointed by this,” councillor Abbot said.

“We’ve had this for a few meetings now, this is not acceptable.”

Councillor Wendy Rider (LibDems, Brickhill) said: “This is a good system, but every time there has been a problem, it’s just not acceptable. I’m very, very disappointed with what’s going on.”

The meeting was adjourned to give the support team time to resolve the issues, but there was still an audio issue when the meeting reconvened.

When the meeting finally ended, councillor Abbott said: “I would thank everyone for coming to what should have been a short meeting this evening.

“I really hope by September we have our IT issues sorted out.

“I will say the fact that the system wasn’t even started when the meeting started tonight is not acceptable, and I will be bringing this up with committee services.”

Public-i was approached for a comment. Its spokesperson said: “We are, of course, disappointed to hear of the negative feedback about our system.

“Public-i installed a new webcasting system into the Chamber at Bedford Borough Council in June of this year. Following training in early July, the council began to stream its meetings using this system.

“Some issues became apparent during the first few meetings. Whilst some were normal “teething” problems whilst users got used to the system, there were some changes we needed to make too.

“An engineer attended site to rectify these on July 18. Since then, the system has operated as intended. Public-i have provided additional support and additional training for users to increase confidence and reduce user error.

“Unfortunately, the council’s own network has since experienced some unrelated problems.

“This was the cause of the issues seen on Monday, August 15, where we saw packet loss (loss of data) and a consequent drop in the livestream.

“Public-i is not responsible for the council’s network. Nevertheless, our team has been working closely with the council’s IT department to help them locate and solve the issue.

“We look forward to resuming our normal service as soon as these internal issues are solved.”

A Bedford Borough Council spokesperson said: “It’s a new system, and while not ideal, teething problems are to be expected.

“Officers are being trained on the new system and we are working closely with Public-i to ensure the smooth running of future streaming.

“Unfortunately technical issues can happen from time to time and the council’s technology team and Public-i are working together to find the root cause of issue.”