Appendix E Appendices to the Minutes Report – November 2022

BOZEAT PARISH COUNCIL                                                                    APPENDIX E

APPENDICES TO THE MINUTES – NOVEMBER 2022

Background.

When I was first employed as Clerk to Bozeat Parish Council, the minutes were hand written in a hard backed book and any reports were included in the body of the minutes.  This was the usual practice for most local authorities at that time.

Over time, the council progressed to producing typed minutes which were kept in a ring-binder, each page was numbered and dated but reports were still included within the text of the minutes.

Having attended an SLCC training course for agendas and minutes, I recommended, and the council agreed, that the format of the minutes be updated to remove any reports from the main body and include approved appendices instead.  This resulted in the number of pages of minutes being significantly reduced although the number of pages used for reports increased.  Appendices are part of the minutes for the month they relate to.

Reports are helpful to the council in that they allow members to read detailed information in advance of meetings and this has the benefit of speeding up decision-making.

Over recent years, the number of reports received each month has grown so that we regularly have 7 or 8 different reports, with the Planning and Highways reports often extending to two pages or more.

The Legal Position

Where the council makes a decision relating to an item contained within a report – such as approving the payments listed on the Finance Report – they need to either be listed within the main body of the minutes or be accepted as an appendix.

Where a report is for information only – such as the List of Correspondence – this need not be an appendix as long as the council doesn’t need to agree any action relating to an item on the list.

Recommendation

I would recommend that the council agrees that the following reports continue to be treated as appendices: –

• Finance Report [payments need to be approved].
• Planning Report [the council needs to approve comments sent on its behalf].

The following reports be considered as information only and not included as appendices: –

• List of Correspondence.
• Village Warden’s Report.
• BEES Report.
• BPFA Report.
• JAG/PLR Reports.

The following reports may need consideration as to whether or not to include as appendices: –

• Cemetery Report.
• Highways Report.
• Allotments Report.

The council needs to ask whether these reports are likely to contain recommendations for action/expenditure or are we able to ensure that such items are always added to the agenda for a meeting?