Pre-parish meeting held before formal minuted meeting where they decide how they will vote - should this be minuted?

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Old Tom · Answer 1 · 2017-07-31T18:16:37+0000

Hello Karo1526. I am not entirely clear what is going on here? Who are the ‘they’ you refer to? All Councillors or just a group? Are these meetings held in public? In my view a pre-meeting meeting, at which a majority of Councillors decides in advance the outcome of a consequent Parish Council meeting, is dishonest and a denial of transparency and local democracy.

The question is: what can be done about it? After all you can’t stop individual Councillors talking to each other between meetings. I suspect that holding a pre-meeting meeting as you describe is not illegal. The answer may be to shine a light and expose to wider public knowledge what is going on and why it is bad. Do your local residents care that this is how their council is run?

Pre-parish meeting held before formal minuted meeting where they decide how they will vote - should this be minuted?

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