Gateshead councillors have been urged not to secretly record conversations with Civic Centre officials. A memo issued to all elected members of the local authority, which has been seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, sets out the consequences of recording council staff without their knowledge.
The council said that the briefing was not issued in response to a specific complaint about such an issue and that it was part of a “range of information and guidance provided to members”, which has been expanded following a major influx of new councillors resulting from the May elections at which Reform UK won a majority.
However, one senior councillor said that they had “never in my time in the council ever received a memo like that” in almost 40 years.
The note, titled “Recording of interactions with Council Officers”, states: “Whilst recording a conversation to which you are party is not a criminal offence to do so without informing the other parties can seriously damage working relationships, undermine trust, create data protection risks, and potentially breach the standards of conduct expected of elected members.”
It goes on to state that conversations between councillors and officers often include personal data, sensitive personal information, confidential legal advice, and commercially sensitive information.
When approached for comment, a council spokesperson said the local authority “regularly issues briefings and guidance to councillors on a range of topics relevant to their role”.
They added: “As many councillors were newly elected in May, the Council has expanded the range of information and guidance provided to members. The briefing referred to was issued as part of that programme and was not produced in response to a complaint.”
All political groups on the council have said that none of their councillors have been reported to have covertly recorded officers.
The leader of the council, Reform UK’s Nick Allan, commented: “There is nothing unusual as far as I am concerned around this. We have got a lot of new councillors from all parties who have joined the council, and we regularly get briefings on policies with which we are professionally involved.
“This comes very much in that category. To my knowledge, there has been no complaint or issue raised by people saying they have been recorded secretly. Obviously, I am aware of certain councillors who film or record public meetings, but they are allowed to do that. Beyond that I am not aware of anything.
“As far as we are concerned, it was just an update on policies and standard administrative procedure.”
The memo states that secretly recording a meeting with a council officer could damage trust, inhibit open discussion, and “create an adversarial rather than collaborative working environment”.
Liberal Democrat group leader, Councillor Ron Beadle said: “No Liberal Democrat would record meetings without consent. Officers are quite right to remind councillors that this would be unacceptable.”
Veteran Lib Dem councillor Jonathan Wallace added: “I have been in the council since 1987, coming up to 40 years, and I have never in my time in the council ever received a memo like that.”
A spokesperson for the council’s Labour group said: “We are aware of the correspondence from officers. No Labour councillor has or would engage in this kind of behaviour. We find this concerning for councillor and officer relations if this were to have happened.”
The Green Party group said: “In respect to whether any of us have taken recordings of our interactions with officers of the council, we can confirm that none of us has taken recordings of interactions with council officers.
“We abhor the idea of recordings being made regarding any interactions with individuals at the council: members, officers or otherwise. It’s important that members and council officers can feel like they trust each other, and that they can interact with openness and honesty. It is the Green Group position that we have a positive and trusting working relationship with council officers and other members, and we would seek to keep it that way.”
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