Taking minutes of council meetings

Municipality of Rotterdam

The algorithm application uses recordings of a (council) meeting to create a record of the meeting. The algorithm converts speech into text, after which a person reviews the report.

Last change on 5th of December 2025, at 10:18 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Other algorithms
• Impact assessment: Field not filled in.
• Status: In use

General information

Theme

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Begin date

04-2025

Contact information

[e-mail]

Responsible use

Goal and impact

PURPOSE: The costs for the purpose of editing minutes are reduced.

IMPACT: The minutes tool allows more efficient work and cost savings, while maintaining the reliability, accessibility and archival value of the minutes. The tool is in line with the requirements of the Municipalities Act and Rotterdam City Council's own quality standards.

Considerations

With the deployment of the algorithm, costs are saved on providing written minutes without affecting the quality of the minutes.

Human intervention

One person checks the text and rewrites it from spoken to written language and one person checks the adjustments made by the previous person. These two persons are employed by the supplier.

After the report is delivered to the registry, it is checked again there by an employee employed by the registry. After this check, the report is published on a public website and made available to the participants of the meeting, they then adopt the report at the next meeting.

Risk management

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Operations

Data

MP3 files of the meetings of the city council and council committees to be worked out.

Technical design

The minutes tool is used by the registry of the City of Rotterdam. The registry of a municipality supports the city council in its work. The registry helps councillors prepare meetings, draft motions and amendments, and ensures that decision-making runs smoothly. The clerk is the head of the registry and acts as the first advisor to the municipal council.

The registry is independent of the College of Mayor and Aldermen (B&W) and the civil service organisation that falls under the college. While the civil service supports the college in implementing policy, the registry supports the municipal council in its controlling and framework-setting role. In this way, the registry monitors democratic relations within the municipality.

The registry also has the task of taking minutes of the municipal council's meetings. The minutes tool is used to prepare these minutes: An audio file is put into the system. Then the system profiles the voices through voice recognition.

Then, using a language model, the system writes a text of what was said in the recording. A staff member checks the text and rewrites it from spoken to written language. The completed record is adopted by the attendees of the meeting in question within six weeks. Both the audio file, the voice profiles and the transcript are irrevocably destroyed at the supplier after a set retention period of eight weeks. This is recorded and can be verified by means of a declaration of destruction.

External provider

Notule service Netherlands and Spraaklab