Hybrid Council Meetings: What the AV Actually Needs to Do
Hybrid council meetings run on AV, not policy — here’s what the AV actually has to do
Councils across the UK have been running hybrid and webcast meetings routinely for several years now, but the underlying legal position on fully remote formal meetings has shifted more than once — worth a quick check before you finalise a spec.
The legal nuance worth knowing
During the pandemic, temporary regulations allowed councils across the UK to hold entirely remote formal decision-making meetings. That blanket flexibility was subsequently allowed to lapse in England and Wales, meaning formal meetings generally need members physically present again in most cases — though the specific position varies and has continued to be debated. What hasn’t changed is that hybrid working, where members are physically present but the public can view remotely via webcast, and officers or the public can join specific sessions online, remains both legal and now completely normal practice.
This distinction matters for procurement: you’re not usually buying a system to enable a fully virtual chamber. You’re buying a system that makes an in-person meeting genuinely accessible to a remote public and, where policy allows, remote committee members.
What the AV actually needs to cover
In practice, three things do almost all the work: automated, speaker-linked cameras so the person talking is the person on screen without a camera operator; a livestream/webcast encoder that pushes the feed to the council’s website reliably, every single time, because a failed webcast at a controversial planning meeting is a headline nobody wants; and public gallery AV — a hearing loop and clear audio for anyone actually sitting in the room.
The mistake worth avoiding
Democratic services teams often get pulled into researching webcasting platforms as if it’s a software decision in isolation. It isn’t — the platform choice needs to sit on top of camera, microphone and room acoustics that are specified together, not bolted on afterwards. A brilliant webcasting platform fed by a single ceiling microphone across a 20-person chamber still sounds terrible to the public watching at home.
We specified exactly this combination — auto-tracking cameras, a full delegate microphone system, webcasting and public gallery AV — for Falkirk Council’s Committee Chamber, delivered in time for a set of meetings the Council couldn’t postpone. See how it came together in our Falkirk Council case study.
FAQ
Do councils still need to hold meetings in person?
In England and Wales, the temporary flexibility for fully remote formal decision-making meetings introduced during the pandemic was allowed to lapse, meaning most formal meetings currently need members physically present — but the position has been debated and can change, so check current guidance for your authority.
What’s the difference between hybrid and fully remote council meetings?
A hybrid meeting has members physically present in the chamber while the public (and sometimes specific attendees) join or watch remotely. A fully remote meeting has no one physically present — a different, and currently more legally constrained, format.
Does a hybrid meeting AV system include electronic voting?
Not as standard — hybrid meeting AV (cameras, webcasting, public gallery audio) and electronic voting are typically specified as separate elements of a chamber upgrade, though they’re often installed together. We cover how electronic voting works, and how it interacts with delegate position and public or private ballots, in our guide to electronic voting systems.
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