Do other Parish Councils use Councillor written Briefing notes ?

Question

Some councillors write a briefing note on their agenda item that they then issue to the Councillors (but not the Public /  noticeboard / website) sometimes these will have proposals within the note. My issue is that the Public do not see these briefing notes and in a recent meeting the proposals were not read out (debated / proposed / resolved) so they were not included in the minutes as they were not part of the meeting - so this lead to a major argument over the corresponding minutes.  I am not against the brieifng notes but feel they should be available to all and then they do not form part of the minutes as that for resolutions . What do other Parish Councils do ?

Answer 1

Any briefing notes should be made public if they form part of the Agenda supporting documents, unless the Council can justify them as exempt information under the FOI Act 2000.

Answer 2

Any information in the briefing notes should be incorporated within the written report and made public.  That will put on file the basis upon which any decision was made and save arguments later.  It's also good to have that available for the public to help explain how things came about.  If there is information in the briefing note that is not fit for public consumption, the author needs to ask themselves why and if it's because an attempt is being made to influence members one way or another then that's predetermination.