Is it unlawful for any documents relating to financial matters to be presented without having three clear days

Question

 

　

Our parish council has ten Finance and Administration committee meetings per year where the committee decide to vote on and pass the monthly expenditure of the council.

At each meeting councillors are presented with the schedule of payments and are informed that they will have a few minutes to read them prior to agreeing the payments.

No councillor even those not on the F/A committee is in receipt of the schedule of payments as they are not sent or posted with the agenda three clear days before the meeting.

Therefore is presenting the SOPs at the F/A meeting unlawful and if it is does it have any implications on every F/A meeting that the SOPs has been passed, therefore making them unlawful? 

Answer 1

In my view, and it is no more than that, the answer will depend to some degree on what the payments are.

A parish council cannot commit to expenditure unless the item is on the agenda and the public have add the three clear days notice as you say. Hence a decision, for example, to buy a new park bench, shall we say, can only be passed with the requisite notice having been given. However, approval to pay the bill for the new park bench once it has been delivered need not be noticed because the expenditure was incurred when the council resolved to buy it. All that is being done now is to pay an outstanding account. Similarly, accounts re: electricity and hall rental etc. have probably already been committed to by the council.

However the best option would seem to be to publish the list of payments prior to the meeting.