Issue - meetings

The Committee received a report on the Council’s Social Media Policy.

Trish Barnard, Head of HR and Employee Experience advised that at the Chairman’s briefing meeting, it had been decided by the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive that the Policy required a thorough review and potential re-write and feedback was therefore required from the Committee in order to do so. 

As a result of the member’s comments and questions, the following points were

made:

• Feedback from Trade Union colleagues was that the Policy was too lengthy and should just be presented as guidance.
• Trade Union representatives had felt the requirement for staff to be ‘politically neutral’ with regard to joining in with community conversations online could be considered contentious.  
• Posts regarding vulnerable people on the ‘We Love Bracknell’ Facebook page should be removed.
• With regard to complaints about social media content not involving staff, the Policy stated that the communications and marketing team would work with Thames Valley Police and ‘internally’ if the posts broke the law or put vulnerable people at risk, but the Committee felt the Council’s legal team should also be involved in such cases.
• No incidents involving officers on social media had been reported but there had been incidents involving members which had come to light.
• It was felt the Policy placed too much emphasis on GDPR and should instead be more generic in relation to the Data Protection Act in anticipation that the UK’s departure from the EU would mean that many of the derogations would not come into effect - although 95% of the Council’s staff had already undertaken GDPR training. 
• Staff were restricted from using social media sites on council provided IT equipment, which included accessing personal bank accounts, for example, which meant there should be no significant impact on the bandwidth and internet speed affecting the council’s e-mail system and data platforms.

RESOLVED that the Council’s Social Media Policy in its current form be not approved but would be brought back to the Committee in October 2019 in a shortened format with supplementary guidance for further review.