Agenda notice for PC meeting

Question

Our parish council has stopped putting up the agenda in the parish box and other places citing it is a strain on the clerk

Is it not 'law' that the agenda is put up in conspicuous places for the public to be told 3 days prior to a meeting?

Answer 1

Every public authority is required to have a publication scheme under the Freedom of Information Act. This must state the information that the council will make public, without any need for requests. For a local council, it should certainly include agendas and their supporting documents. So, in my view, it would be a breach of the FoI to fail to publicise the agenda and supporting documents. 

It is also a statutory requirement to make public the fact that a meeting is going to take place. The clerk will have a great deal more work if citizens routinely demand copies of the agenda for each meeting as it is announced (as is their right), quite apart from the breach of the FoI.

Comments

This is what is in the minutes. So this statement from the councillor below is wrong then?
2035.Review of Standing Orders
Cllr **** reported that the Parish Council currently post the full agenda of meetings on the two notice boards. This happens on the Sunday prior to the meeting, along with the notice of the meeting. This is not a legal requirement and places an unnecessary strain on officers. He proposed that the standing orders are amended to indicate that the agenda is available on the internet, and then the yearly schedule of meetings can be posted once.

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Well, if the agenda is being published on the internet, then it is debatable. Personally, I would take the view that while there are people who do not have internet access but are capable of reading a notice board, democracy is better served if both routes are offered. Is it really so hard to put up a notice?

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You are correct; how hard is it to put up a notice? Notice the term 'officers'; a parish council with officers!!! I thought it was only the clerk who was the legal officer not the parish councillors themselves?

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The Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities requires parish councils to publish full and informative meeting agendas 3 days before meetings take place.

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Can Saturday & Sunday be counted as 2 of the 'clear day' & is there a law that states this?
Our clerk (4th in four years) is being questioned continuously by our old chair and this pedantic examination is irritating many to distraction.

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Since you asked, I thought it best to look this up. It's more difficult than you might think! The legislation plainly says that there must be three clear days, but does not explain what is a clear day. In practice, it has long been interpreted, on the basis of a ruling in R v Herefordshire Justices (1820) as meaning weekdays excluding the day a document becomes available and the day on which the meeting takes place. This was supported in R v Swansea City Council ex parte Elitestone Ltd (1993). Now we get down to what is a weekday? "Knowles on Local Authority Meetings" says that it should not include Saturdays or Sundays. It is widely agreed that it should not include public holidays. At one time, it could have been said that Sunday was the only day on which there were restrictions concerning work, and so every other day was a weekday. Nowadays, most people would think that weekdays are Monday to Friday. If the clerk is not publishing the agenda and supporting documents, then there is a strong argument that only days when the council office is open for inspection of documents count as clear days. Unfortunately for your hope of ending pedantry, there is no definitive answer. The statutes do not provide one and there is nothing in case law. You could obtain a ruling by taking a council to the High Court over the issue, but with fees starting at around £10,000 you probably wouldn't choose to do that. If you would like to end the debate, I suggest that you propose a change to your council's standing orders to say that for the purpose of calculating clear days Saturdays (optionally), Sundays and public holidays should be excluded. The council can vote on this and agree what definition to use. Once it is part of standing orders, there is no further need for discussion. Sorry I can't do better than that!