This is an extract from the video stream of the Merthyr Full Council meeting held on 5th October 2022.
It shows new, at that time, Councillor Jamie Scriven raising a Point of Order relating to the minutes of Committee Meetings being presented to the Full Council for approval.
He referred to the Council’s Constitution and expressed his concern that the Council was not complying with it’s Constitution by presenting the minutes of Committee Meetings to the Full Council for approval as a correct record and questioned how he, as a member of the Full Council, could be expected to approve the minutes of a meeting as a true record if he was not a member of and, therefore, not present at that meeting of the Committee.
Now, I sincerely believe that his question was reasonable and logical.
However, I must point out that the Monitoring Officer, who is the Senior Officer with responsibility for Governance at the Council, does not work within the realms of reason and logic.
She responds to Councillor Scriven that the fact that the Agenda states that the Full Council was being asked to approve the minutes of Committee Meetings as a correct record, that did not mean that Councillors needed to have attended the meetings to do so.
She continued to explain that the reason why Full Council was asked to approve the minutes as a correct record was SO THAT THE MINUTES COULD BE RECORDED ON THE COUNCIL’S FORMAL RECORDS.
I must point out that this is NOT CORRECT.
The Full Council is not required to approve minutes of committee meetings so that they can be entered into the Council’s Formal Records.
The Constitution states that the Formal Records of the Council ARE the agendas and approved minutes.
The Agendas for Full Council meetings include the following item:
To approve and enter into the record the minutes of the following meetings:
The minutes of the Full Council meetings are as follows:
The Council approves as accurate (subject to any
amendments) the Minutes of the following Meetings:
OBSERVATIONS
1 The Agenda mentions APPROVE AND ENTER INTO THE RECORD.
2 The minutes do not mention entering the minutes into the record.
3 There is, as already stated, no need to resolve to approve the minutes for entry into the Council’s RECORD. That is because they ARE the FORMAL RECORD.
4. However, good governance practice requires that the minutes of meetings should reflect the actions required by the Agenda.
Merthyr Council is the only Council in Wales that does not allow the Minutes of Committee Meetings to be presented for approval as a correct record to the Committees themselves.
IT IS A FARCE.
All the Councillors are aware of this bad governance practice.
I am aware of a few Councillors that would like to see the Council working within the realms of Good Governance practice.
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