Virtual meetings – rules and etiquette
General principles of Council Meetings and Committees
(Extracted from the Chichester City Council Standing Orders)
The PDF of this page can be downloaded here: Chichester City Council virtual meetings – rules and etiquette – April 2022
LINK – Chichester City Council Code of Conduct – February 2021
- Members of the public are permitted to attend all Council and Committee meetings with the exception of Agenda items specifically highlighted as confidential due to the matters being discussed – e.g. Personnel or confidential business matters. These items are clearly stated on the Agenda.
- Members of the public are permitted to make representations, answer questions and give evidence in regard to Agenda items. The time available for this is subject to the Chairman’s discretion.
- Each member of the public is permitted to speak once only and for no more than three minutes.
- A question asked by the public shall not require a response or a debate.
- The Chairman may direct that a response to a question from the public be referred to the Town Clerk or a Councillor for an oral response, or a written response in the case of the Town Clerk.
- A member of the public should raise their hands when requesting to speak and wait for a response from the Chairman.
- Comments and questions from the public should be addressed to the Chairman.
- Only one person is permitted to speak at a time. The Chairman shall direct the order of speaking.
- ONLY matters that are included in the meeting Agenda may be discussed at that meeting.
Additional principles applied to virtual meetings
- Meeting links and passwords will not be published openly – those interested in attending should contact the City Council for more information.
- Meeting links and passwords should NOT be distributed by anyone other than City Council Officers.
- All attendees are subject to the terms outlined in this document and Chichester City Council’s Standing Orders.
- Those attending will be initially placed in a waiting room. The City Council host will then admit them to the meeting in order of arrival.
- Late attendees will only be admitted if the business being conducted at the time is in public session.
- The City Council will record all Meetings – recordings will be held in accordance with the City Council Data Protection and Privacy policy.
- The following Zoom features will be disabled:
- Screen sharing – only the host will be permitted to screen share for the purpose of in meeting presentations
- Whiteboard
- Annotations
- File transfer
- One-to-one private text chat
- Personalising attendee backgrounds.
- All microphones will be muted and only enabled by the Chairman when a Councillor or member of the public wishes to speak to an Agenda item.
- Attendees are asked to be courteous at all times.
- Attendees are asked to be mindful of what is happening in their surroundings to prevent unnecessary noise or background activity from detracting from the meeting.
- Attendees wishing to speak should raise their hand until the Chairman unmutes your microphone and asks you to speak.
- Attendees creating inappropriate disruption may be removed from the meeting at the discretion of the Chairman. Once removed, re-entry to the meeting will not be permitted.
- In exceptional circumstances, disruptive users may be reported to Zoom and/or the appropriate authorities for further investigation and/or action.