COMMUNITY councils in Argyll and Bute could be encouraged to have more of their meetings online “to assist with the democratic process”, a councillor has suggested.

The area’s council presented its updated communications strategy at a meeting of councillors, with the authority’s head of communications saying there will be several evaluations of the process.

A report also pledged that the council’s communication strategy for the next three years has been developed by listening to communities and employees in different ways.

The discussion took place at a meeting of the council’s policy and resources committee on Thursday, October 10.

Jane Jarvie, the council’s head of communications, told the meeting: “The strategy includes an action plan at the end, so there will be lots of different pieces of evaluation of the actions involved.

“It might be using digital analytics to find out how many people we have encouraged to find out about a particular topic.

“We will consider the progress of the plan, which has been put together based on media enquiries and public enquiries.

“We are getting the concerns raised through these and we work with the customer service centre to widen the knowledge of the public concerns.

“We will consider whether they are more or less informed, and whether there is something we can do to amend the service.

“We will continue to monitor concerns coming to us from the public, in addition to evaluating individual projects.”

Councillor Gordon Blair (SNP, Cowal) then said: “I have found that community councils who are more able to hold their meetings online are more engaged with the council’s website.

“This is like a learning curve that everybody is on moving forward. The councils that we have in Cowal are moving forward.

“Do you have a general listing of those across the council area who do have access? I feel that in areas where there is a hydro scheme, or wind turbine scheme, some do not have access and are maybe left behind.

“If you can get straight lines into community councils, that is a step towards ticking the box for the communication strategy.

“Perhaps we should encourage community councils to have more meetings online as part of the democratic process.”