Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson is calling on the Government to allow council meetings to be held remotely as a result of the expected wave of Covid-19 cases.
Liverpool City Council is to move its Cabinet, Council and committee meetings online with only the bare minimum of staff present to ensure the meeting can be properly conducted and recorded.
However, it cannot have councillors participating remotely because the legislation requires meetings to be held in public with elected members gathered together.
For full council meetings in Liverpool this means 90 councillors together in one room, plus staff and members of the public.
Mayor Joanne said: “We welcomed the return to meetings held in public but must do what we can to protect our citizens, members and officers now that the Omicron variant is on the march.
“We will move our Cabinet, Council and committee meetings online as far as the law allows and still ensure that public participation is an active part of our meetings.
“But I do not believe this goes far enough, so am writing to the Government calling upon them to allow us to hold online meetings, as we had during the height of the pandemic.
“It is not fair to put councillors and officers – some who will have underlying health conditions – at risk, particularly when the Government’s own advice is for people to work from home if at all possible.
“We proved during the height of the pandemic that we were able to exercise our democratic responsibilities virtually, and we stand ready to do so again.”
