CouncilPapers.

Before you start

Make sure you have read The minutes lifecycle — it explains the difference between Approval and Adoption and why both are required before minutes are fully published.

Minutes must be committed before they can be scheduled for approval or adoption. Uncommitted minutes will not appear in the selection lists.

Step 1 — Check which minutes are pending

Go to Minutes in the left-hand menu. This shows a list of agenda versions across all committees, with columns showing each meeting's Approval and Adoption status. Use this list to identify which minutes are outstanding.

Step 2 — Add an approval or adoption item to a future agenda

Open the agenda for the meeting at which approval or adoption will take place. Find the relevant agenda item — typically a standing item such as "Approve and Adopt Minutes" or "Minutes of Other Meetings" — and click Add Content beneath it.

The dropdown offers three options depending on the committee:

Select the appropriate option. You are taken to a selection page.

Step 3 — Select the minutes to approve or adopt

The selection page lists all published minutes that are currently pending the relevant action. Each entry shows the committee name, meeting date, version number, and minute page range.

Where minutes have previously been scheduled for approval or adoption but not yet confirmed, a note is shown explaining the history — for example, that they were approved at a previous meeting but that meeting has not yet been minuted.

Tick the checkbox next to each set of minutes you want to include in this meeting's agenda item. Use the Link to Agenda link to review the original minutes before selecting if needed.

Click Save. The selected minutes are added as linked items beneath the agenda item. If you return to the selection page, any already-linked minutes are shown as Already linked to this item.

At this stage the minutes are marked as scheduled for approval or adoption — not yet confirmed.

Step 4 — Record the outcome in the minutes

When you come to minute the meeting at which approval or adoption took place, open the Edit Minutes Item form for the relevant agenda item.

A yellow highlighted section appears at the top of the form showing the linked minutes and a checkbox:

• Approved — tick to confirm the minutes were approved at this meeting
• Approved and Adopted — tick to confirm both steps simultaneously (Full Council only)

Ticking the checkbox and saving updates the status of the original minutes. Once both Approval and Adoption are confirmed, the draft watermark is removed and the minutes are fully published.

Checking the status of minutes

To see the current approval and adoption status of any set of minutes, open the meeting's minutes page. The Approval / Adoption row shows:

• Which agenda item scheduled the approval or adoption, with a link to that agenda
• Whether the approval or adoption has been confirmed (ticked) or is still scheduled but unconfirmed (unticked)
• Whether the relevant agenda is live or not yet active

This gives a complete audit trail of where each set of minutes is in the workflow.

Manual approval and adoption

The minutes detail page also includes buttons to manually mark minutes as approved or adopted — for example, if minutes were approved at a meeting before CouncilPapers was in use, or if the normal workflow was not followed.

If you need to reverse an approval or adoption that was recorded incorrectly, contact your CouncilPapers administrator.