The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has published guidance for local authorities to purchase video and audio conferencing technology.
The move comes in response to last week’s announcement by the Government that it was relaxing the rule, at least temporarily, requiring face-to-face full council and committee meetings in local government so authorities could continue business while maintaining social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.
CCS has directed organisations towards its Network Services 2 and G-Cloud 11 procurement frameworks and outlined a series of questions they should ask in the course of purchasing.
These include whether they should offer meetings as audio only and cap the number of attendees, how a meeting should be moderated and how quickly is it possible to implement a solution.
It has also pointed out that any organisation considering Zoom – which is emerging as one of the most popular technologies for video conferencing – can carry out a quick procurement through G-Cloud-11.
Last week the Government temporarily removed the local government requirement for the public to have physical access to meetings – initially until 7 May – removing a regulatory barrier to councils taking advantage of the technology during the pandemic.
Image from US Dept of Agriculture, public domain
