No guides match your search.
Templates
Parish council agenda template
A free parish and town council agenda template, with every standing item explained, the three clear days notice rule, and how to handle confidential business.
Parish council minutes template
A free parish and town council minutes template, with worked examples of resolutions, attendance, confidential items and draft status. Word and PDF.
Agendas and notice
Can a parish council decide something that isn't on the agenda?
No. A parish council can only transact business specified in the summons - which is why "any other business" can raise matters but cannot decide them.
Planning applications and your parish council agenda
How parish councils get notified of planning applications, the 21-day deadline, what weight a council's comments carry, and what changes on 31 October 2026.
Serving the summons: post by default, email by consent
A parish council summons goes to the councillor's usual place of residence unless they have consented to a named email address - and the council must be able to undo it.
Minutes
How to write parish council minutes
How to take and write up parish council minutes: what to note during the meeting, what to leave out, how much detail to give, and getting them approved.
Approving and adopting parish council minutes
Who approves parish council minutes, what can be changed at the approval item, who signs, and how to correct an error found after the minutes were signed.
Minute references and numbering
There is no legal minute numbering system for parish councils. Here are the three that work, what breaks them, and how to reference a past decision.
Confidentiality and transparency
Exempt business and confidential items at parish council meetings
When a parish or town council can exclude the public, how to word the resolution, and how to show confidential items on the agenda and in the minutes.
Who can see parish council minutes?
Electors, councillors, journalists and everyone else have different rights to see parish council minutes. The routes, and what each one actually gets you.
Accessible agendas and minutes
Parish councils have no size exemption from the accessibility regulations. What they require for agendas and minutes, and where scanned PDFs stand.
GDPR and personal data at a parish council
A parish council is a public authority for FOI but not for the UK GDPR. Two things follow: no mandatory DPO, and legitimate interests is open to the council.
Using WordPress for a parish council
WordPress is very commonly used to run parish and town council websites. It is a capable platform - but councillor pages, a meetings archive, running the site safely, and the risk of publishing the wrong version of a document all take work it does not do for you.
What a parish council must publish
The Transparency Code lists seven things smaller councils must publish, and when. Above £25,000 the duties are different - and thinner than most clerks think.
Meetings
Can a parish council hold virtual meetings?
No - council meetings in England must be held in person, and remote attendees do not count towards the quorum. What the law says, and what is changing.
Full council, committee, sub-committee or working group?
What a parish council can delegate to a committee, a sub-committee and a working group - and why the answer for a working group is nothing at all.
Doing all of this in one place
Every guide here describes work CouncilPapers was built to take off a clerk's desk: agendas built from a committee template, numbering that looks after itself, confidential items handled once rather than twice, and minutes published to the web the moment they are approved.
Need more help? Contact us
Built by a councillor, for council clerks
Save hours of paperwork per meeting
Write agendas and minutes once and publish them straight to your council's website. Councillors get them in the Councillor App. No re-typing, no uploading files one by one. See the features
Records you can stand behind
Agendas and minutes are version-tracked and searchable, with public and confidential versions kept apart. That helps you stay audit-ready, though the council remains responsible for its own compliance. Overview for clerks
Open, accessible council papers
Published papers are designed to meet WCAG 2.2 AA, the standard the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 require. Your council's data is stored in the UK (AWS London). Accessibility statement
Councillors get agendas, papers and past minutes in one secure app, not a pile of email attachments. Overview for councillors
Read our story