Annual Meeting v Normal Parish Council Meeting

Question

Silly question, but should the Annal Meeting be distinctly separate to a normal parish council meeting

As this as one or local parish appears to have combined the two and just called it a Parish Council meeting.
They did the annual elections as the first times, then had normal parish business, then elected for the various committees etc. A member of the public has quiered this with me as she is under the impression that the Annual meeting should be totally separate and distinct, but is aware that a normal meeting can follow on.

The Parish Clerk is not new, but they are very much trying to empire build, their way or no way and sod the law and council polices in place!

Oh this is a normal year not an election year

Ta Muchly

Answer 1

The Annual Parish Meeting is a meeting of the electorate and is called by the Chair, Councillors or residents, it is not a Council Meeting and Councillors attending are attending as Members of the Public.

The Annual Council Meeting is where the Chair is elected for the new year, this must the first item on the agenda.  It can be one meeting with all the procedure items at the beginning followed by the items that would be discussed at a normal Council Meeting.  It is entirely up to the Clerk how they do the agendas, our Clerk does two agenda’s one for the Annual Council Meetings, this is immediately followed by a normal Council Meeting.

Comments

As the previous answer has said, the annual parish meeting is quite different from the parish council meeting as it is a meeting of electors not a parish council meeting but I do know that many councils hold both on the same night although they are or at least should be quite separate with separate agendas, etc.  This is not recommended practice but does happen.
The annual parish council meeting is simply a parish council meeting on steroids as it includes the election of the chair and possibly a whole host of other things that need to be done on an annual basis as specified in your standing orders.  There is no need (and a huge amount of extra work for the clerk) to turn this event into a two meeting marathon with a separate meeting/agenda for the annual part and another for the normal business.