Martin Brown wrote:
> 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?
As a general legal principle you need to keep the records for at least six
years. After that the appropriate thing would be to give them to the county
records office. The records are required to be open to inspection during
normal office hours without charge. AFAIK the parish council is supposed to
have published an FOI scheme that includes a schedule of charges. The
district council are usually the organisation to seek advice from rather
than the County Council.
Peter Crosland
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