Should the minutes of a confidential 'Emergency Meeting' be published?

Question

What should happen to the minutes if a meeting was held to discuss confidential information, and therefore excluded the public? Should they be published at all? Presumably they must still be kept, so that any decisions made are recorded? Should they be available for Cllrs to read if necessary? If the matter being discussed ended up in court, I presume a record of what was decided at that meeting would be relevant.

Answer 1

All minutes of all meetings should be published regardless of whether the meeting was closed to the public.  The minutes themselves should be written in such a way that it records that the meeting has taken place and should contain only the barest of information.  For example, if there was a meeting to discuss next stages in a legal action, the agenda item should read: To agree next stages in the xxx legal action, and the minutes should read: the next stages in the xxx legal action were agreed.  It shows that a legal, legitimate meeting was held and decisions were made in accordance with legislation, without disclosing the details of what was decided.

I hope the above helps

Comments

I agree that the public record must not include any detail of the proceedings of the meeting, but how do we add those details to the official records of the council?  In your legal action example, a decision might have been taken to incur significant expenditure and in the future, that decision may be subject to scrutiny.  Evidence will be needed to explain how and why the decision was made.

On the only occasion I have been involved in a partially closed meeting, I took minutes of that agenda item in the usual way, but published them in a separate document that was not included in the public record.  I now have a dedicated file for confidential minutes, although it remains light on content!  This is an old trick I picked up in school governor clerkship, which may or may not be relevant to local councils.

Answer 2

The meeting should have been publicised in the usual places  and a resolution should have been given that the entire meeting contained confidential subject matter.and that press & public should be excluded.