South Gloucestershire Council has “switched off” automatic transcripts of its webcast council meetings.
The council made the move after the transcription software generated hilarious but inaccurate interpretations of what was said at its first public meeting held by videoconference and webcast on April 27.
The transcript of the meeting had council leader Toby Savage saying “I’m patting Clare” and was littered with nonsense such as “I'm Steve Jobs anything you want to add on planets whimpers”.
The transcription facility has been turned off until it works properly or is replaced by something that does, a council spokesman said.
“As inadvertently entertaining as the transcript from the cabinet meeting webcast was, we hope that when it’s working properly it will be helpful to members of the public following our democratic processes, which are important to continue with despite the lockdown," the spokesman said.
“We’ve switched off that functionality until we can be sure the system works properly or until we can find a replacement.
“The public will still be able to listen to live meetings and access the minutes, as they could with the physical meetings.”
The spokesman added: "Maybe we can use it when we release Director's Cut extras on the DVD boxed set of cabinet meetings."
The cabinet meeting on April 27 was the council's first foray into virtual public meetings after it was forced to stop holding public meetings at its Kingswood offices to limit the spread of Covid-19.
The webcast from that meeting can be found here.
The transcript, no longer visible, used to appear in a scroll-down format that played in tandem with the video.
The council's next public meeting is scheduled for 3pm on Monday, May 18.
It is not clear from the council's website whether the meeting of the spatial planning committee will be webcast.
