How correct should the minutes be

Question

The clerk takes the minutes at meetings but many time she names a councillor as saying something then when the minute are to be approved another councillor will speak and say that is not right it was me that said that  does this matter or should we just except the minutes and pass them

Answer 1

Oh dear.

The minutes should record the decisions made at the meeting.  There sometimes needs to be a brief explanation so that, when looking back, there is an understanding of the context of what was decided.

The description of your minutes is a perfect example of why they should not record the ebb and flow of discussion.

Comments

No, no, no...

It is not the content of the minutes which creates the problem here - it is the apparent lack of accuracy of person creating them.

We can reference the various sources which glibly state that minutes should be brief, should only record who was present and what was decided blah, blah, blah, but when we do that we completely overlook the purpose of a council is to SERVE the people.

You SERVE the people by providing a document with sufficient detail, context and accuracy as may reasonably provide an informative record of council business.

This crusade to minimise the minutes to a useless yes / no scenario is predicated upon the despicable desire to say nothing since the less we say the less we can be held to account or answer or justify.

The answer to the question is that the minutes should be accurate - regardless of their length or detail.

The PROBLEM is not the content of the minutes but rather the ability of the person recording them to achieve even basic accuracy!

Its no good treating the symptom and ignoring the problem....

Answer 2

A simple answer notwithstanding the NALC pushed doctrine as outlined by RAC which, in my opinion, is a clear abdication of responsibility, just read what the minutes statement that the chair signs when the council approve the meeting minutes " I certify........"

Encouraging brevity over accuracy of information is verging on criminal. Is it no wonder that communities up and down the land are forced into apathy and indifference to what their councils do or don't do on behalf or their communities. In most cases just to reduce the clerks workload.Bless!

Comments

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/02/lawyers-raise-alarm-at-struggle-to-tackle-uk-local-government-corruption?fbclid=IwAR2P9WFt4eqcIQi2NberVRrok7oo1k6XRanN8tKtEAmmjbPW1hCT8VGc6ag

Answer 3

Firstly if the public were interested they’d turn up to see the meeting.

Secondly since it is now so easy to record meetings my attitude now is that the minutes only need to record the decisions and a full recording of the meeting should be available on line

In my experience quite often misleading information is used as a basis to make decisions but not included in the minutes so there’s no comeback
On one occasion our Clerk mistakenly issued two versions of the minutes which clearly showed how they had subsequently been manipulated presumably after discussing them with the Chair !
Also recording the meeting prevents a lot of the show boating and other bad behaviour that happens