Tom Watson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what guidance he has issued to local authorities about the use of (a) Twitter and (b) other social media to communicate with the public.
Kris Hopkins
Digital and social media are an effective and low-cost way of communicating with the public.
This Government has amended the law to strengthen the rights of the press and public to report and film council meetings using digital and social media. In August 2014, we published a plain English guide to help councils, the press and the public with these new rights.
We made clear that there is no prohibition on councillors from tweeting and blogging at meetings, and they should be able to do so provided it is not disruptive and does not detract from the proper conduct of the meeting.
Local authorities should have regard to the local government Publicity Code, which seeks to prevent the misuse of taxpayer-funded resources, including social media.
Notwithstanding, last June, Ministers challenged and criticised guidance to parish councils issued by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) that sought to prevent elected councillors from issuing media comments without prior written permission of the council. NALC has now produced a new Media Policy Example that takes into account the new national rules on filming and recording at parish and town council meetings.
In December, we invited bids for local pilots to bring statutory notices into the 21st Century. This could include supporting the increased use of digital and social media by councils and commercial partners, as one of the ways that such notices could be improved and reformed.
