Help with listening

Listening to a meeting that is live

Open your council's page. If a meeting is being broadcast, the top of the page says Live now and names the meeting. Press the play button on the player to hear it.

You do not need an account, and there is nothing to install. While the page is open and in front of you it checks every ten seconds, so if you open it before the meeting starts you can leave it open: it changes to Live now when the broadcast begins, without being reloaded.

What you hear is a little behind the room. That is normal for a broadcast over the internet.

What the top of the page is telling you

Live now. The meeting is being broadcast. Under the name of the meeting the page shows the agenda item being discussed, where the council marks its items as it goes.

Starting soon. The council has made the meeting ready and has not started the broadcast yet. Before the meeting's listed time, the page says what time it starts instead.

Sound interrupted. The sound from the meeting room has stopped reaching us, for example because the room's internet connection has dropped. The meeting may be carrying on. The page keeps trying, and says Live now again when the sound is back.

Paused. The council has paused the broadcast, for example during a break. It carries on when they restart it.

No meeting is live right now. Nothing is being broadcast. The page may show the next meetings the council has listed. Not every meeting a council lists is broadcast.

If you cannot hear anything

Check that you have pressed play. A web browser does not start sound by itself.

Check the volume on the player, and the volume and mute on your phone, tablet or computer. On a phone, check that it is not set to silent.

Look at what the top of the page says. If it says Sound interrupted or Paused, there is nothing to hear for the moment and nothing wrong at your end.

If the page says Live now and you still hear nothing after a minute, reload the page and press play again.

If that does not help, try another browser or another device if you have one. That tells you whether the problem is with the broadcast or with the device.

Listening to a recording

Recordings of past meetings are listed lower down the council's page, newest first. You can search by the name of the meeting, or choose two dates to see the meetings between them.

Choose a meeting to open its own page, then press play. Where the council marked its agenda items during the meeting, each item is a link that takes the recording to where that item began.

A recording appears here once the council has published it. The council decides which recordings are published.

Sending someone a link

On a recording's page, use Copy a link to this recording. Tick the box beneath it to make the link start at the moment you have reached, so that whoever opens it hears the same part.

Reading a transcript

Some councils publish a written transcript with their meetings. Where there is one, it is shown with the player. It is made by a computer listening to the meeting, so it can contain mistakes, and it is not the council's official minutes.

Agendas, reports and minutes

These are the council's own documents. For many councils, a meeting's page links to its agenda and reports on the council's own website.

Who to ask

For anything about a meeting itself, such as what was decided, when the next one is, or a recording you expected to find, ask the council.

If the page or the player is not working, tell us at hello@audiominutes.com. It helps to say which council's page you were on, what the top of the page said, and what device and browser you were using.

If you find the page hard to use for any reason, our accessibility statement says what we have tested and how to tell us.