We have tried asking this question of our county council for guidance,
but they did not know the answer. And I couldn't see any suitable
guidance on Google or in the newsgroups. The main question is:
How long should Parish Council Minutes be archived for as a minimum?
We have them going back for over 10 years although the PC has existed
for about 4 decades - and the location of the earlier minute books is
not known. Arising from this there are subsidiary questions regarding
access to the minute books that do exist in our custody.
Does the present day PC have any liability for not being able to find
the oldest minute books?
Might they have been filed in some deep dark corner of county hall?
Can a parishioner or other member of the public request to see all the
PC minutes spanning several decades and expect to get an answer under
the freedom of information act?
Are we allowed to charge 10p per sheet for photocopying and ignore the
request completely if it would take more than 2.5 man days to
complete?
Since Parish Councillors are volunteers and do not get paid what are
the accepted criteria that can be set to avoid unreasonable
timewasting requests?
Thanks for any enlightenment.
Regards,
Martin Brown |