Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011

4 Remote attendance at meetings

(1) A reference in any enactment to a meeting of a local authority is not limited to a meeting of persons all of whom are present in the same place.

(2) For the purposes of any such enactment, a member of a local authority who is not present in the place where a meeting of that authority is held (a “member in remote attendance”) attends the meeting at any time if all of the conditions in subsection (3) are satisfied.

(3) Those conditions are that—

(a) the member in remote attendance is able at that time—

(i) to see and hear, and be seen and heard by, the members in actual attendance,

(ii) to see and hear, and be seen and heard by, any members of the public entitled to attend the meeting who are present in that place and who exercise a right to speak at the meeting, and

(iii) to be seen and heard by any other members of the public so entitled who are present in that place;

(b) the member in remote attendance is able at that time to hear, and be heard by, any other member in remote attendance in respect of whom the condition in paragraph (a) is satisfied at that time;

(c) use of facilities enabling the conditions in paragraphs (a) and (b) to be satisfied in respect of the member in remote attendance is not prohibited by the standing orders or any other rules of the authority governing the meeting.

(4) The standing orders of a local authority must secure that there is no quorum for a meeting of the local authority at any time when the number of members in remote attendance is equal to, or greater than, the number of members in actual attendance.

(5) A local authority may make other standing orders about remote attendance at meetings of a local authority.

(6) A local authority must have regard to guidance given by the Welsh Ministers in relation to meetings of the authority attended remotely in accordance with this section.

(7) This section applies in relation to a meeting of a committee or sub-committee of a local authority as it applies in relation to a meeting of a local authority.

(8) But a person who is a co-opted member of a committee or sub-committee may not be a member in remote attendance at a meeting by virtue of this section.

(9) For the purpose of this section—

(a) a reference to a person (A) seeing another person (B) is to be interpreted as a reference to A seeing B when B is speaking at the meeting;

(b) a reference to a person (C) being seen by another person (D) is to be interpreted as a reference to C being seen by D when C is speaking at the meeting.

(10) In this section—

• “co-opted member” (“aelod cyfetholedig”), in relation to a committee or sub-committee of a local authority, means a person who is a member of the committee or sub-committee, but not a member of the authority;

• “member in actual attendance” (“aelod sy'n mynychu'r fangre”), in relation to a meeting of a local authority, means a member of the authority who is attending the meeting at the place where the meeting is held.