Parish council action sheets

A council meeting produces two quite different things. One is the record of what was decided - the minutes. The other is the list of things that now have to be done, by someone, before the next meeting. The minutes are a legal document; the list of jobs is not, and it is the part that quietly decides whether anything actually happens.

That list is the action sheet. This guide covers what it is, why it is worth keeping separate from the minutes, what belongs on it, and how to use it so that resolutions turn into results.

England; general guidance rather than legal advice.

What an action sheet is

An action sheet is a short working document that takes each decision needing action and sets out three things: what has to be done, who is responsible, and by when. It is tied back to the relevant resolution by its minute reference, so anyone can trace an action to the decision that authorised it.

It is not a statutory document. Nothing in the law requires a council to keep one, and it is never published or signed. It is simply the clerk's tool for making sure the council's decisions are carried out - the "follow up and diarise" step that the sector's own guidance recommends.

Why keep it separate from the minutes

The temptation is to let the minutes do this job - to write "the Clerk to write to the County Council" and treat that as the record and the reminder at once. Resist it.

Minutes are the permanent record of what the council decided. They are written in the past tense, approved at the next meeting, and then fixed. They are the wrong place for a live to-do list: a to-do list needs ticking off, re-ordering and carrying forward, and none of that can happen to a document that is meant to be a settled record.

Keeping the action sheet separate keeps each document honest. The minutes record the resolution; the action sheet tracks the work. It also stops the commonest failing in home-made minutes - the slow drift from a record of decisions into a running list of tasks.

What goes on it

Keep it to the essentials. For each action:

• Minute reference - so the action ties back to the resolution that gave rise to it (see minute references and numbering).
• The action - written as an instruction, starting with a verb: write to, obtain, arrange, report back. One action per line.
• Who - the person responsible. Usually the clerk, but it may be a named member or member of staff.
• By when - a deadline. "Before the next meeting" is the default; give a date where one matters.

A simple table is all it needs:

| Minute | Action                                            | Who   | By       |
|--------|---------------------------------------------------|-------|----------|
| 26/7   | Bring year-end figures to the May meeting          | Clerk | 11 May   |
| 26/9   | Write to County Council re Mill Lane restrictions  | Clerk | 30 April |

Some clerks add a status column - open, in progress, done - and a priority, so that the urgent items stand out from the routine ones. That is worth doing once the list runs to more than a handful of actions.

Prepare it first

Draw the action sheet up before you write the minutes, not after. It takes ten minutes while the meeting is fresh, it is the thing people actually want to see, and doing it first stops you smuggling a to-do list into the minutes. Go through the agenda, pick out the resolutions that need action, and capture the action, the owner and the deadline for each.

Only then write the minutes proper, at decision level, in the past tense. The two documents come out of the same notes but serve different ends.

Who the actions belong to

Most actions fall to the clerk, as the council's proper officer: it is the clerk who carries the council's decisions into effect. Some fall to a named member - a chairman writing to a landowner, a member meeting a contractor on site.

Two points are worth remembering when you allocate an action to a councillor. First, an individual member has no authority to act for the council unless the council has given it to them; the action sheet records a task, it does not confer a power. Second, a resolution takes effect when it is passed, not when the minutes are approved - so an action can and usually should be started straight away, without waiting for the next meeting to sign off the record.

Following the actions up

An action sheet is only worth keeping if it is reviewed. Two habits make it work:

• Diarise each deadline. Put the dates where you will see them, not only on the sheet itself.
• Review the sheet at the next meeting. This is what the "matters arising" item on an agenda is for: run through the outstanding actions, note what has been done, and carry forward what has not. Completed actions drop off; anything still open rolls into the next sheet.

Reviewed this way, the sheet closes the loop between one meeting and the next, and gives the council a plain answer to the question that otherwise gets lost: did we actually do what we said we would?

Common pitfalls

• Letting the minutes carry the to-do list. Minutes record decisions; the action sheet tracks the work. Keep them apart.
• Actions with no owner or no date. "The matter to be progressed" is not an action. Name a person and give a deadline.
• Naming members of the public. As in the minutes, keep personal data off the sheet unless it is genuinely necessary (see how to write minutes).
• Writing it and never looking at it again. An unreviewed action sheet is just a longer way of forgetting. Build the review into the next agenda.

Or let the software do it

An action sheet is bookkeeping that software should be doing. In CouncilPapers, our minutes software for parish councils, the clerk raises a matter requiring action straight from the minute it arises from, allocates it to one or more staff or councillors with a priority and a due date, and tracks the lot on a single council-wide action sheet - with overdue items flagged automatically. Each councillor sees the matters allocated to them in the councillor app, so nobody has to go hunting through old minutes to find out what they agreed to do.

See matters requiring action and writing minutes, or start a free 45-day trial.

Last reviewed 8 October 2026. General guidance for councils in England, not legal advice.