SOAP operas, blockbuster movies, YouTube and top sports action could soon have a new rival in attracting the attention of the viewing public - Fife Council meetings.

Committees could be filmed and put on the council website to improve accountability and transparency.

However, the committees have been described as "boring" and "monotonous" and there has been recent controversy over councillors spending time at meetings on their laptops, mobile phones sending text messages and reading newspapers.

The workings of the local authority largely remain a mystery to the man and woman in the street even though the decisions can have a major impact on their lives.

Labour leader Alex Rowley said that currently committee meetings were often "a waste of time", with councillors behaving worse than schoolchildren and others reading newspapers instead of participating in the business.

He hopes that by screening the meetings it could lead to an improved level of debate and the Labour motion at Thursday's full council meeting could find wider support.

Lib Dem councillor for Dunfermline South, Tony Martin, said, "I think it's something we should do so that the public can be better informed.

"It is done in other areas and I don't think we would be against it as an administration.

"I don't know if it will lead to better, more informative debates. It could go the other way and lead to more grand-standing." SNP councillor and MSP Bill Walker said, "I would support the idea in principle. It's about democracy and keeping people informed.

"The only thing is how much it will cost but I think generally it would be a good thing.

"Some of the committees might be a bit boring for viewers though." It seems the meetings are also boring for some councillors, who have been spotted using gadgets or reading newspapers instead of agenda papers and this led to a clash between Labour and the SNP.

The issue was raised during a committee meeting last week by Labour councillor Mark Hood who was unimpressed by the SNP's Fiona Grant using a laptop.

He was also unhappy at the way the matter was dealt with by committee chair and council leader Peter Grant, Fiona's husband.

He emailed Mr Grant, "In my opinion the lack of respect she paid other members of the committee and the officers who had taken the time to prepare reports and attend the meeting was unprofessional and discourteous." Mr Grant responded, "I take great exception to the accusation that I was more lenient towards Fiona than I would have been to anyone else." He added, "You might want to consider whether it is respectful or courteous for councillors to turn up at a committee and announce that they haven't read any of the reports that officers have spent so much time preparing or indeed whether it is respectful and courteous to fail to turn up at all for 50 per cent of their allocated meetings." Independent councillor Bryan Poole joined in the email debate with a report on what he had observed during the meeting.

He said one committee member was using a laptop, another spent part of the meeting reading a local newspaper, another was texting regularly while Councillor Poole admitted he was himself checking emails on his phone.

Councillor Rowley said he was not surprised people used laptops during "monotonous" meetings and that he too used his Blackberry "to get on with more meaningful and useful work".

He told the Press, "Some councillors attend meeting after meeting and never say a word.

"If you do try to scrutinise issues and start a debate, all you get is abuse.

"The past four years has seen the worst types of abusive behaviour I've come across in my time as a councillor.

"The council's responsible for education but if it was schoolchildren behaving this way they'd be getting into trouble.

"If the public were able to look into what was happening at council meetings it might stop that kind of behaviour and maybe we could debate the issues, which is what we're supposed to be there to do. The current committee structure is dinosauric." The Labour motion calls for officers to "explore the advantages and disadvantages of video recording council meetings and making them available to the public" and to "review and assess the technology that would allow the recording and broadcast of council meetings".

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