​Written Assembly Questions tabled on 10 March 2017 for answer on 17 March 2017

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Written Questions must be tabled at least five working days before they are to be answered. In practice, Ministers aim to answer within seven/eight days but are not bound to do so. Answers are published in the language in which they are provided, with a translation into English of responses provided in Welsh.

To ask the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government

Janet Finch-Saunders (Aberconwy): Will the Cabinet Secretary advise as to why the funding for live streaming cabinet/council meetings was cut in 2016, and explain how the Welsh Government is now ensuring that local authorities use the infrastructure they had set up to keep streaming? (WAQ73154)

Answer received on 16 March 2017

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government (Mark Drakeford): In March 2013 the Welsh Government provided one-off financial support to encourage local authorities to broadcast their meetings, enable remote attendance and to assist community councils to set up websites. Partly, as a result of the funding, 18 out of 22 local authorities are broadcasting their council meetings to some extent.
There has been no cut in this funding as it was a single grant payment.
The White Paper ‘Reforming Local Government: Resilient and Renewed’ currently the subject of consultation, retains the provisions from the Draft Local Government (Wales) Bill, which requires local authorities to produce strategies explaining how the public can understand how decisions are made and how they can participate in the process. Further to this I intend to make broadcasting of council meetings a statutory requirement.