Digital Services Architect to attend to provide an oral update on the work of moving declarations of interests/gifts and hospitality online.
Minutes:
The Digital Services Architect gave an oral update on the work of moving declarations of interest/gifts and hospitality online and highlighted the main matters as follows :-
· Register of Interests online – members to be able to choose whether to fill the form on the Welsh or English site
The current process was explained to the Committee and it was noted that the Modern.Gov system has not been developed to operate bilingually. The work undertaken to allow elected and lay members to enter details bilingually was that the member entered his/her details in both English and Welsh into the Register of Interests form through the democracy extranet system. There is no option for the member to enter bilingual details directly into the Welsh Register of Interest form. The Digital Services Team thereafter has to translate the details entered by the members. The Digital Services Architect stated that Modern.Gov submitted a grant request to the Welsh Assembly in 2015 requesting funding to be provided as a partnership to make the system thoroughly bilingual, unfortunately the initiative was not accepted. She noted that the bespoke development would cost in the region of £10k.
· Gifts and Hospitality online form – amendments to the online Welsh and English forms to pdf format
The gifts and hospitality data can be inputted bilingually into the system by members utilising the current online form. The requirement to add additional ‘fields’ to the current form to reflect the attached pdf format will require bespoke development. An additional ‘help bubble’ can be added to the labelling to provide guidance. It was noted that training would need to be provided to the members to ensure that they fill in the comments box with data that reflects the questions asked within the pdf format. However, it was stated that adding a few extra boxes to the system has a considerable cascading effect on other areas of the system and it was anticipated that the costs would be in the region of £10k.
· Declaring interests in meetings – enabling members to fill their own interest in meeting online prior to the meeting
Members fill in declaration of interest forms prior to or during meetings. The present system is that the forms are forwarded to Committee Services who add and translate the declarations to the Modern.Gov system whilst preparing minutes of meetings. The declarations of interest at meetings appear on the Councils website under each individual member. Anticipated costs would be in the region of £7,500 to add extra boxes to the system.
The Digital Services Architect further stated that since all Welsh local authorities who use the Modern.Gov system have the same bilingual and e-democracy requirements, it would be reasonable to raise these issues at the next User Group meeting in November and to suggest that a joint development be funded by interested authorities.
It was RESOLVED to note the report and to receive an update on the progress made with regard to Member’s Online Registers.
ACTION : As noted above.