Not a minute for the minutes

A TOWN council says it has not published its decisions on its website because it has been busy.

Under section 55 of The Local Government (Wales) Act, community councils must publish the minutes of their decisions on their websites, including any relevant documents referred to.

But Conwy Town Council says it has been too short-staffed to be able to keep the site updated. Now a former councillor has slammed the council for not operating in a democratic and transparent manner.

Terry James was one of three unhappy councillors who resigned a year ago, claiming Conwy Town Council was not being run fairly.

The former town clerk also walked after a disagreement following a contentious council meeting.

Conwy Town Council’s website is currently missing nearly four months of council minutes.

“This is vitally important. What use are minutes if they are missing months and months?” said Mr James.

“People should be kept abreast of information and decisions as they are coming in.

“These events are important to the local community. These are decisions made by elected representatives of the community.

“Everything they are doing should be open and transparent. That is not happening at the moment.”

A spokeswoman for Conwy Town Council said they had been short-staffed and were very busy. The spokeswoman also referred to a potential complaint to the ombudsman being mentioned.

“The minutes will be expedited as soon as possible. We have had a high number of staff changes/shortages this past nine months and have a very busy workload to get through, especially with elections coming up,” she said.

“It is only the resolutions that need to be published on the website rather than the entire minutes,” she claimed. “We are currently working on a document containing those resolutions and expect this to be published on the website in the coming days.”

She added: “With regards to your comment concerning the ombudsman, this would not normally be something the ombudsman would consider to investigate.”

Official guidance reveals the Ombudsman for Wales can intervene if there has been a service failure or personal injustice and council maladministration has played a part.