Freedom of Information

 Whilst a Parish Councillor, I asked many times for information concerning funding and accuracy issues.  The style in which the Minutes were written after May 2022 when I was appointed, were also a cause for concern.

Since this information had not been forthcoming I made a Freedom of Information request to the Clerk, first regarding past minutes. 

It seems that there are no Minutes for Betley available in the public domain (and Minutes are public property) before 1959.  I found this extraordinary for such an ancient Parish as Betley.  It appeared that no Minutes had been deposited with the Staffordshire Record Office, ever. 

In a Minute (25/10) the then Clerk recorded that he had found Minutes from 1925 to 1958 and that these were now in his safekeeping.  If this was the case then it would be useful to know where these Minutes are now.  There were also gaps in the 1970s and some even more recent Minutes were incomplete.  

When the Clerk retired, the Issue of the Minutes was raised again.  The new Clerk, and Chair claimed that they had deposited a set of Minutes with the Staffordshire Record Office.  It is also unclear which years were deposited. It was also unclear if  copies or the original documents were deposited.       

The issue was raised again more recently, and in response to another Freedom of Information Act request, I was given the following information:

'The Minutes prior to my employment, which were handed to me by the previous Clerk, were sent to the County Records office, I do not know the date.  This information was reported to the Parish Council, whilst you were a Member. Under another Freedom of Information request, you asked for copies of the Parish Council Minutes for the last 20 years and you were provided with copies of those Minutes by the former Clerk (which are the ones that have been deposited).

I was indeed given a set of Minutes by the former Clerk before he left, for which I was grateful, but these were incomplete.  By this time Minutes after 2012 were being posted (somewhat belatedly and only after I had raised the issue in 2022) on the Parish Council web site.   However, the Staffordshire Record Office has no record of any other Minutes being deposited with them, other than the most recent small deposit, mentioned by the current Clerk.   I have been informed that the Record Office have delayed accessioning these since a promised deposit is awaited and  which has yet to materialise:

'The only minutes we have are very recent, though I don’t have the exact dates to hand (they have not been officially accessioned because we are waiting for a larger deposit) but something like 2018-2021. I was informed by the (previous) Betley clerk back in 2022 that all minutes after 2007 are on the Parish Council website...'. He also said they also retained minutes 1959-1979, partial/copy minutes 1987-2006 (and full minutes to date), but a gap 1979-1987...  We believe that there may be earlier minutes kept locally in Betley but we have no definitive information as to that...'.

This is somewhat worrying since, as mentioned above Minutes of the Parish Council are public property and should be made freely available to members of the general public.  They are not the property of Clerks, Chairs or any Society. 

I was also led to believe by the former Clerk that the early Volumes (1959 (possibly) to 1979) were in a poor state of repair and would not be publicly accessed.   This was corroborated in a Parish Council Minute.

However, had these volumes been deposited with the Record Office in a timely manner as Parish and other Councils are encouraged to do, where they would have been suitably conserved for posterity, so that public accessibility could be maintained.

The recently adopted retention of Documents Policy 24.25 by the Parish Council states that Minutes to be 'archived'.     

So, to date, my original Freedom of Information Act inquiry, in my view, has not been satisfactorily met.  This raises the question of the purpose of the Act, not least the spirit of the Act.  Is it to be interpreted as freedom from  information, which the above might indicate, or is its purpose  Freedom for  information.