Do parish council minutes have to be approved unanimously?

Question

The Chair of my parish council recently pushed through a motion rejecting suggested corrections to the minutes of the previous very contentious PC meeting. There was a deliberate effort made by the Chair to stifle any discussion, a vote was hastily taken, and 4 councillors voted for the motion, 2 voted against and 1 (asking for more time to discuss the minutes) was deemed to have abstained. The minutes were then approved, despite the fact those voting ‘for’ knew them to be inaccurate.

Answer 1

The normal agenda item is accept the minutes of the last meeting as an accurate representation of the meeting. This is called for by the chair. Councillors can then put forward where they feel it is not and make known why not. This is then put to council to accept or reject and recorded. If accepted the chair will then alter or amend the minutes as per representations and then call on council to further vote on whether he is to sign the minutes as accepted as amended. So there has to be a vote of council in the majority not unanimous. And do not forget that as with ALL council votes the chair has their vote as a councillor and also the casting vote if there is a draw in votes.

Comments

Minutes are a record of what was said not what people would have liked to have said
So there should never be any problem agreeing them
Personally I feel the huge majority of Parish Council minutes don’t contain enough detail as to why decisions are made
I’ve often been at meetings where misleading information was used to make decisions but not recorded in the minutes
So record all meetings and retain them, circulate minutes asap after meetings,try to  resolve any objections to minutes before the next meeting