Regional councils have been trying to comply with the law on openness for a year

Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson regional councils mostly complied with the law requiring local councils to show their work in video format.

This was reported by experts of the Chesno movement based on the results of the study.

Experts noted that broadcasting sessions has become a common practice for most regional councils, but Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, and Chernivtsi councils did not publish full videos of plenary sessions until mid-August last year. Zhytomyr paused from the beginning of the full-scale invasion, but returned the video in early September 2024.

Experts noted that Odesa regional council prefers to broadcast sessions, while commissions are mostly shown on record, although the regional council responded to the analysts' request that commission members work offline and their work is shown online. However, in the descriptions to the videos themselves, the experts recorded the label "video recording."

Experts also noted that only four councils did not publish broadcasts or recordings of plenary sessions before the law came into force last year. In particular, they were unable to find such videos on the websites and YouTube channels of Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Kyiv, and Odesa regional councils. The Kherson Regional Council held two sessions in a remote format during the year. The recordings were made public.

More than two-thirds of the councils hold their sessions in person. Deputies of Kherson, Kharkiv, and Poltava regional councils also work remotely. Depending on the situation, deputies of Mykolaiv and Chernihiv regions meet either offline or online. A mixed form is used in Sumy region.

Kirovohrad, Odesa, and Dnipro regional councils work in the council chambers and broadcast their plenary sessions live. In the Dnipro region, online broadcasts were not paused even after the full-scale invasion, but first they gathered in ZOOM. And on July 28, 2023, they returned to live broadcasting. The Poltava and Mykolaiv regional councils are also broadcasting live, albeit remotely.

Кирило Бойко