Decision details

To seek approval for a new approach and protocol for the way in which briefings and non-formal meetings are held between Council Officers and Elected Members.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of Fareham Borough Council staff worked in the Council’s offices, at other Council facilities (such as sheltered housing schemes) or worked across the borough maintaining our parks, collecting household waste, visiting people and homes, all with one thing in common, to provide high quality customer services across Fareham borough.

Whilst this remains the primary objective, the ways in which Council Officers and Elected Members communicate and work together has had to change during the pandemic in order to remain compliant with Government guidelines and restrictions on movement.  This significantly reduced the number and frequency of face-to-face meetings.

Although we had already started the move to mobile and cloud-based ICT solutions, the pandemic led us to a rapid step-change in our use of mobile technology and working remotely.  What we learnt from this experience, is that many of our services can be provided very effectively through remote working, and this led to a review being undertaken to consider how we might build on this approach in the future.

RESOLVED that the Executive agrees that:

(a)  all future Officer/Member briefings and non-formal meetings should be delivered via Microsoft Teams where possible and practical to do so; and

(b)  the Virtual Meetings Protocol, as appended to this report be adopted.