Setting default meeting content

What default meeting content is

Default meeting content is a set of standard agenda items that can be applied automatically when you create a new agenda for a committee. It saves you from adding the same standing items — Apologies for Absence, Declarations of Interest, Minutes of the Previous Meeting — every time you create a new agenda.

Default content is a starting point only. Once an agenda has been created from the defaults, you can add, edit, reorder, or remove items freely.

Changing the defaults after meetings have already been created has no effect on those existing agendas — it only affects agendas created in the future.

Where to find it

1. Go to Committees in the left-hand menu.
2. Open the committee you want to configure.
3. Click Default Content for Agendas.

The page shows two sections:

• Default Introduction for new Meetings — the introductory text that appears at the top of every agenda, with placeholders for venue, date, time and publication date
• Boilerplate Content for Agenda — the list of default agenda items

Editing the introduction text

Click Edit Settings in the top right of the Default Introduction section to update the introductory text. This is the same text configured when the committee was created. Placeholders such as {{venue}} and {{meeting_date}} are replaced automatically when the agenda is generated.

Adding default agenda items

Click + Add Entry to add a new default agenda item. For each item you can set:

Papers, annexes, and links cannot be added to default items — these are added to individual agendas after creation.

Loading a model agenda

Rather than adding default items one at a time, you can load a ready-made model agenda based on NALC or One Voice Wales guidance.

Click Load a Model Agenda on the Default Content for Agendas page. Select a model from the dropdown — grouped by England (NALC) and Wales (One Voice Wales) — and a preview of its contents is shown.

If the committee already has default items, you will be warned and given the choice to:

• Replace all existing default items — tick the checkbox to clear the current defaults and use only the model agenda's items
• Add after existing items — leave the checkbox unticked to keep your current defaults and append the model's items after them

Click Load Model Agenda to apply. The loaded items become your committee's default content and can be edited, reordered or removed as normal.

See Model agendas for more on what model agendas are and where the content comes from.

Reordering default items

Click Sort Items to drag default agenda items into the order you want them to appear. The order set here will be the order they appear when a new agenda is created from default content.

How default content is applied

Default content is not applied automatically. When creating a new agenda for a meeting, the clerk chooses how to create it from four options:

• From Default Content — creates the agenda using the committee's default items
• Clone a previous meeting — copies the agenda from an earlier meeting of the same committee
• Clone an existing agenda for this meeting — copies an existing version of this meeting's agenda
• Blank agenda — starts with no items

Choosing From Default Content creates the agenda with all the configured default items already in place, ready to edit.

Recommended default items for most committees

As a starting point, most committees benefit from having the following as default items:

• Apologies for Absence
• Declarations of Interest
• Minutes of the Previous Meeting
• Matters Arising from the Minutes

Standing items specific to the committee — such as Planning Applications for a Planning Committee — can be added on top of these.