"Council acknowledges the need, on occasion, for business sensitive information and discussions to be made secure, and that this in turn will result in members of the Public and Press being excluded from certain restricted Council Meetings or part thereof.
However, to provide transparency and promote public confidence, Council should maintain records of the content of restricted Meetings.
Council therefore agrees that all future restricted Meetings, which exclude Public and Press attendance (in part or full), should be video recorded, in the usual manner, and the footage should be retained by a relevant Officer.
Council accepts that Meeting recordings would only apply to those meetings where recording technology is currently available.
Recording of restricted meetings will be made available to all Elected Members, individually, as a Group, or as a full Council, on request.
Access to the recording(s) should be time-bound and restricted to a period of 72 hours, following which access would then cease. Further requests for additional time can then be made to the relevant Officer and no unreasonable barrier should be placed on Elected Members which would impede access. This information access request facility should be available to Elected Members on an ongoing basis, and with immediate effect.
Enabling Elected Members to review historical comment and points of reference is essential, and in doing so increases public confidence in due process.
Council should recognise this Motion as essential in maintaining high standards of public scrutiny as would be expected by the residents of North Lanarkshire"