Council meetings are where a parish council makes its decisions lawfully — and there are clear rules about notice, access and records. Get the process wrong and a decision can be open to challenge, so the admin around meetings matters as much as the debate.

Notice: the three-clear-days rule

Notice of a meeting, together with the agenda, must be published at least three clear days before the meeting. “Clear days” excludes the day the notice is posted and the day of the meeting, and doesn’t count weekends or bank holidays — so in practice you need to publish well ahead. The notice must be posted in a conspicuous place in the area and, for most councils, on the website.

The agenda

The agenda must list the business to be transacted. A few principles:

  • The council can only make decisions on items on the agenda — you can’t lawfully resolve something raised under “any other business”.
  • Items should be specific enough that a resident reading them knows what will be decided.
  • The agenda is also where you record declarations of interest and, where justified, the exclusion of the public for confidential items (a motion under the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960).

Public access

Meetings of the council and its committees are, as a rule, open to the public and press. Members of the public can also film or record open meetings. The public can be excluded only for specific, justified confidential matters, by resolution.

Minutes

Minutes are the legal record of what was decided — not a transcript of the discussion. They should record who attended, declarations, the decisions (resolutions) made, and figures where relevant. Minutes are approved and signed at the next meeting, and once approved are published. They should be accessible (real text, not a scanned image) for the website.

Join it up

Meetings generate a chain: summons → agenda → papers → minutes → decisions → actions. When that chain is held in one system — with papers attached, decisions linked back to the meeting, and actions tracked to an owner — nothing gets lost between the meeting and the follow-up.

How Town Desk handles this

Town Desk runs the whole meeting chain under Meetings: build the agenda and attach papers with a draft → review → approve → publish workflow, record attendance (with a per-councillor attendance %), and capture decisions in a searchable register linked back to the meeting, each with an owner. The register of members’ interests lives under Councillors, printable for the website. Everything is kept as real, accessible records — not scanned images.

See the democratic services features, or book a demo.

General information for UK town & parish councils, not legal advice. See the Local Government Act 1972 (Schedule 12), the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, and NALC guidance for the authoritative rules.