13th October 2023
‘Missing’ minutes could have led to hours… of head scratching!
IN some respects members of the public have an advantage when it comes to speaking at the monthly meetings of Morval Parish Council.
For many years now the council has set aside 15 minutes at the start of a meeting for parishioners to raise issues. Each speaker gets a maximum of five minutes, although more can be allocated at the chairman’s discretion.
The official agenda for the monthly meetings always invites ‘members of the public to address the meeting in relation to the business to be carried out at the meeting’ but, in reality, almost anything can be brought up for discussion.
Speakers do not have to give the chairman or the clerk pre-warning of what they will raise – although, as ever, prior notice can be useful if a satisfactory outcome is to be swiftly achieved.
On the other hand, though, councillors must always give notice of their intention to raise an issue.
The reason for that is to ensure it appears on the meeting’s agenda – the list of items up for debate that is always printed on the council’s website and noticeboard before each monthly meeting.
In theory, it means that a councillor cannot raise something that is not on the agenda; in practice, of course, councillors can be prone to suddenly remembering something which they want airing – and such a scenario presented an awkward dilemma at the October monthly meeting of Morval Parish Council.
When the minutes of the previous meeting came up for approval – to be rubber-strapped as a correct record of the meeting – Cllr Jasmine Fullalove expressed her concern that there was no mention of the proposed Widegates play area (or, as it transpired, the future use of the Trenode Field).
The clerk, Sam Pengelly, explained that both matters had not been on the September agenda so, technically, they should not have been discussed and, therefore, should not appear in the minutes.
While correct in procedural terms, some councillors were unhappy that, because the debates had taken place, there was no mention of two such important topics and what had been decided.
In an attempt to extradite the council from something of an embarrassing impasse, the chairman, Cllr Andy Jackson, said he would not sign-off the minutes until they had been amended to include the two subjects but, in future, he said that councillors must be mindful that they needed to give the clerk or himself due notice of any items to be discussed.
It was also agreed that the clerk would keep future monthly agendas ‘open’ until a full week before they were due to be published in keeping with the lawful regulations – for the Wednesday, November 1 meeting, for example, it will mean that agenda items have to be lodged by Wednesday, October 25.
Procedural changes to council business over the years have seen two once traditional agenda items disappear from agendas across the nation.
The first was always ‘Matters Arising From The Minutes’ whereby any update to a minute just signed-off as a correct record could be recorded.
The second was usually the last item of the night, ‘Any Other Business’, where councillors were allowed to raise and debate random matters – although no decision involving the spending of council taxpayers’ money was ever permitted.
If the debate were one that did call for a council expense, then a decision had to be deferred until the matter could be placed on the agenda for the next council meeting.
Successive Local Government Acts have not expressly forbidden those two contentious agenda items but it is clear that they are now frowned upon by bodies such as the National Association of Local Councils (NALC).
One part of the NALC guidance reads: “It is actually unlawful to make a decision, especially a decision to spend money, without sufficient (three clear days) warning.
“Vague agenda items that don’t specify exact business (such as Matters Arising, Correspondence and Any Other Business) are dangerous and should be avoided, because the council cannot make unexpected decisions.”
The intention is clearly that nothing should be discussed at a parish council which has not been previously advertised to parishioners, who then have an opportunity to make representations, either to individual councillors, or during the public participation segment of the monthly meeting.
Morval council vice-chairman John Collings, whose career in journalism often saw him reporting on all levels of local authority meetings, appreciates the need and reason for the changes but acknowledges that it can still cause problems.
“If you accept NALC’s view at face value, then parish councils would probably need to meet more often than once a month throughout the year, because some issues which crop up after an agenda has been prepared, need to be resolved before the next meeting,” he said.
Cllr Collings said his research (on a personal level and not at the bequest of the council) showed that some parish councils were using other methods to circumvent the NALC guidelines.
“I’ve seen councils who have ‘Matters Arising’ on the agenda but these are ‘Matters Arising From Previous Resolutions’ and not ‘matters arising’ from last month's minutes.
“This, presumably, still gives councillors an opportunity to be updated on matters.
“Similarly, I have found some councils that have ‘Correspondence’ on the agenda, which allows the clerk to bring forward items they may have only received in the past day or so, and even ‘Chairman’s Notices’ under which the council chairman can raise any other matters.
“While these ‘alternative’ agenda ploys may keep on top of late issues, councillors still cannot make decisions on what they have been told because the subject matter has not been widely advertised beforehand.”