Whitby Town Council (WTC) has a current policy of having a main council meeting once every 2 months. We aren’t sure how this is considered frequent enough to react to issues that come up, nor be able to effect change for residents. Minutes of WTC meetings don’t actually make it on to their website until maybe a year after the event. This is clearly a significant hindrance to public transparency of their activities. With this in mind we have requested that they change their policy
We have followed this up with the following
- These are voted on by councillors who were not even present at the respective meetings; please explain the reasoning behind that since such councillors will not be in a position to state if they are a true record.
- There appears to be no scrutiny of committee actions by the overall town council, as in the committees do not report back to full council. When will this be remedied? The subsequent wording of the vote in full council would need amending at this point, effectively to accept the actions of the committee.
- The section at the meeting “to approve as an accurate record …” applies to a large group of minutes, not one by one, which seems peculiar also. Wouldn’t approving them one by one be a clearer and more correct process?
Regards
Whitby Community Network
WTC town clerk replied to the follow up (but not the original), as follows
(1) Regarding the approval of minutes, the following extract of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) Legal Topic Note 5, sets out the position:
“66.The draft minutes of a meeting are circulated with the agenda for a subsequent meeting tasked with approving the accuracy of them.”
“67.The draft minutes of a meeting must be formally approved by the next suitable meeting and duly signed by the Chairman of the meeting (paragraph 41(1) of schedule 12 to the 1972 Act). The signed minutes of the meeting serve as a legal record of what has taken place at the meeting to which they relate. Before a meeting approves the minutes of a preceding meeting by resolution, the meeting may, by resolution, correct any inaccuracies in the draft minutes. The attendance (or otherwise) of the Chairman or those voting in favour to amend or approve of the minutes is irrelevant. Minutes should not be altered once signed unless inaccuracy in the minutes is discovered after they have been signed. Inaccuracies in the signed minutes can be amended by resolution at a subsequent meeting.”
Namely, that “The attendance (or otherwise) of the Chairman or those voting in favour to amend or aprove the minutes is irrelevant”.
(2) & (3) At full council meetings, there are two categories of decision under the heading MINUTES (my emphasis):
- To approve as an accurate record, minutes of the following meeting(s)… (full council), and
- To receive the (draft) minutes of the following meetings… (committees)
These are separate recommendations and are taken as separate resolutions. Only council minutes are approved. Draft committee minutes are received (en bloc) but are not approved. Committee minutes are not approved until the next meeting of each committee – and are, necessarily, considered individually. Council may scrutinise or comment on any of the draft minutes of those meetings (and could by resolution of full council refer to the approving committee instructions to amend the draft) under the following agenda item:
“COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS
Any other matters arising from the minutes noted above”
I hope this clarifies these points for you.
Subsequent to this, the North Yorks Enquirer has picked up on the story and posed some questions that we would also like to hear answers to. A very welcome addition to the debate
