CouncilPapers.

What model agendas are

Model agendas are ready-made sets of agenda items based on NALC (National Association of Local Councils) guidance for England and One Voice Wales guidance for Wales. They cover the standard meeting types most parish and town councils use:

• Annual Meeting of the Council
• Full Council Meeting
• Committee Meeting (Delegated Authority)
• Committee Meeting (Advisory)
• Finance & General Purposes Committee
• Planning Committee

Each model agenda includes the standard procedural items — Apologies for Absence, Declarations of Interest, Minutes of the Previous Meeting — already correctly worded, with routine boilerplate items pre-set to be excluded from search.

Browsing the library

Go to Model Agendas in the left-hand menu to see the full text of every model agenda, for both England and Wales. This page is a reference only — it lets you read the content of each model agenda before deciding whether to use it, without the pressure of doing so inside a live committee or meeting form.

Two ways to use a model agenda

Model agendas can be used in two places, for two different purposes.

As default content for a committee

Loading a model agenda into a committee's default content gives that committee a ready-made starting point for every future meeting. This is the quickest way to set up a new committee and is particularly useful during onboarding. Once the Model Agenda is loaded, the Committee's default content can them be edited and tweaked to the Committee's specifc needs. .

See Setting default meeting content for the full procedure.

As a one-off agenda for a single meeting

A model agenda can also be loaded directly when creating a single meeting's agenda, without changing the committee's default content at all. This is useful for meetings that follow a different structure from the committee's usual pattern — most notably the Annual Meeting of the Council, which has its own model agenda (leading with the election of Chairman and Vice-Chairman) distinct from the ordinary Full Council model.

See Building an agenda for the full procedure.

Editing after loading

A model agenda is a starting point, not a fixed template. Once loaded — whether into default content or a single agenda — every item can be edited, reordered, added to, or removed exactly as if you had typed it yourself.

Model agendas will evolve

The model agenda library is maintained and may be refined or extended over time as guidance changes or as new meeting types are added.