Uploading Minutes to council site.

Question

I was just wondering if this is possible to do or is, in fact, advisable to do!

If it is possible, could someone with experience point me in the right direction (I cant find it!) and advise if it is something, as a Clerk, that I can do myself, rather than send it to someone else!

It's a bit of 'Belt and Braces" by myself; but will avoid it, if advised not to.

Answer 1

Our clerk uploads the minutes of our meetings to our website.

Comments

Unfortunately we don't have a website, so it was directed at the main council one!

Thank you for the reply.

---

If your parish has a turnover of £25,000, then it has a legal requirement to publish them on the internet (Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014), if the parish doesn't have its own website, it can request to use an element of the District Council's website - though it is usually preferable to use your own website (with a .gov.uk address).

---

Unless your principal council provides website hosting for a number of parish councils, they will probably be reluctant to allow you to upload anything yourself.  As others have stated, your own website would be preferable.

Answer 2

I was under the impression that all councils were advised to have their own website, as part of the transparency guidelines.

If nothing else, all public accessible documents can be uploaded which helps to cut down of FoI requests. (YMMV). We had a lot, a few years ago, which caused a lot of work but did ferret out some bad practises.

Answer 3

If you have a website you may be duty bound to publish them on it. by the Openness & Transparency in Public Bodies regulations 2014  and the 2014 Audit & Accountability regs.  It is not advisable not to do so.  Most Town and Parish Council Clerks do this.

You can upload minutes to a website either by using a File Transfer protocol program  (ftp) or content management system.  Who ever built and designed your website should have provided you with one or the other. You should ask who ever maintains your website to facilitate the uploading pronto!