People in Monmouthshire can now find out about Monmouthshire County Council’s budget proposals by watching the council’s member for finance on Youtube. Monmouthshire County Council is the first authority in the UK to present budget information in this way.
Councillor Phil Murphy has been filmed in three short videos explaining how the council sets its budget and what it plans to do to meet the major funding pressures in the coming years.
You can watch the short films here:
Episode 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE4LZnocqFY
Episode 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM1LLc-IGkw
Episode 3 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5bXR4mJcSc
Councillor Phil Murphy, Cabinet Member for Finance and Performance Improvement said:
“The council wants to engage with as many members of the public as we can and we’re embracing social networking sites such as Twitter and YouTube to help us do it.
“I hope that by watching the three short films we’ve made, people will get a good idea of the pressures we face and what we have to do. We’d love to hear their thoughts on our proposals.
“People have busy lives and our intention is to tell people the basics about our budget for those people who have little time to read long documents and for those who want their information delivered in more accessible ways.
“Of course, our website has lots more detailed information for those who want to find out more and I go out and about in the county to find out, in person, what people think.
“We’re always interested in talking to people about all aspects of the council’s work and this evening [Tuesday 11th January] we’ll be answering questions in a live Q&A session on Twitter and our blog.
“One of our values in Monmouthshire is openness and social media gives us another way of involving citizens in local democracy. We have video recording facilities in County Hall so the only cost of doing this was our time and we think that it’s an effective way of informing and talking to people. This is a budget movie in more ways than one!”
Information about the budget can be found at www.monmouthshire.gov.uk/budget2011
You can find out more about the Q&A on the blog at http://ow.ly/3A5B8 and questions and answers from the last session are also on the council blog http://ow.ly/3A5B6 .
Monmouthshire County Council tweets to Monmouthshire residents were recently shortlisted for four national awards that recognise good use of social media.
The council’s Twitter feed, ‘@monmouthshirecc’, was shortlisted for three SomeComms social media awards – a UK competition recognising best use of social media – and is was “Highly Commended” by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Local Public Services Group Awards, in the category ‘Digital Excellence’.
Monmouthshire’s Twitter account has been used by the communications team to give residents another opportunity to talk to the council in an informal and easy way.
