Elected Member Briefing - Council Chamber system issues

About this briefing note

Report by: Graeme Plunkett, IT Team Leader

Date: 15 June 2023

Subject: Council Chamber system issues

Responsible Officer: Alan Taylor, Head of Corporate IT and Revenues

Details

Purpose

Inform Elected Members of the root cause and next steps regarding a technical issue during the Council meeting held in the Council Chamber on Wednesday 10 May.  

Briefing Information 

During the meeting, a delegate activated their microphone to speak, and the camera tracked them, but they could not be heard. From then on, all delegate microphones would appear active and could command the cameras but could not be heard. Only the Chair's microphone remained fully operational. 

Our IT staff attending the meeting noticed a transmitter was powered down and attempted to restore power to the device, which was unsuccessful. The issue was then escalated to our third-party support partner for the Council Chamber, who could not resolve the issue over the phone and had to dispatch an engineer to investigate on Thursday 11 May. 

The third-party engineer identified the root cause to be a faulty power supply and was able to fully restore the system by replacing it. Unfortunately, our support partner cannot tell what caused the power supply to fail. 

The impact of the fault on the meeting meant that delegates had to relocate to other spaces within 2 High Street and join the meeting from either other hybrid meeting facilities or personal devices. During the move to other rooms, the hybrid meeting equipment in the Chamber Meeting Room (R012) was unresponsive and required a reboot. Further interruptions occurred throughout the second part of the Council meeting on 10 May due to misunderstandings on how best to join from hybrid-enabled meeting rooms. 

PKC IT have not experienced these power supplies failing before but have now sourced additional spare units and updated troubleshooting materials to ensure this issue can be resolved more quickly if it reoccurs. 

In future, a robust and tested business continuity plan would enable a smoother transition to a standby solution. There is adequate capacity in 2 High Street hybrid meeting rooms to host the maximum number of delegates the Council Chamber can support. Additional information will be added to the automatic booking confirmation for 2 High Street meeting rooms, advising that users may be asked to vacate a room in the event of an issue in the Council Chamber. 

Over the past year there have been approximately three issues that have disrupted committee meetings. Our third-party support partner is scheduled to perform an annual health check of the Chamber system on Tuesday 4 July. As part of this, IT have requested proposals to outline where additional investment could be made to enhance the resilience and functionality of our existing setup.  

A Committee Services Business Continuity Plan, which utilises existing hybrid meeting rooms, is being developed for use should there be a failure of the Council Chamber system in future.