Girton College, Cambridge. Committee Minutes at Girton. A brief guide to committee minutes at Girton College

Transcription

1 Girton College, Cambridge Committee Minutes at Girton A brief guide to committee minutes at Girton College Version 2.5 April 2012

2 Contents INTRODUCTION... 3 THE COLLEGE'S COMMITTEE STRUCTURE... 4 COMMITTEE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES... 5 COMMITTEE AGENDAS, PAPERS AND MINUTES... 6 FURTHER ADVICE AND CONTACTS Appendix I Glossary Appendix II Agenda Template Appendix III Minutes Template Appendix IV List of information exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act

3 Introduction This guide is primarily intended to help those who are taking on committee responsibilities for the first time, or who are new to the College. However, it will also be useful for more established members of staff who may want to refresh their knowledge. It explains the roles and responsibilities of committee chairs, convenors and secretaries, gives brief details on using CamTools, and outlines how committee minutes and papers should be managed. Please take a few minutes to read through it and by all means feel free to contact the records management officer, Elizabeth Ennion-Smith, if you have any questions or queries. s should be sent to records@girton.cam.ac.uk or call For detailed help on the use of CamTools please refer to the CamTools guidance on the Local Training page of the College intranet. 3

4 The College s committee structure Details of the name and membership of each committee can be found in the committee list, which is drawn up and updated by the Secretary to Council each year (it is available at click on committee list members at the top). A College calendar is also produced detailing dates of all Committee meetings (available at The College s committee system aims to support the College s line management structure by enabling the contribution of staff to the running of committees, and through the input of independent chairs and other members who have an interest in the committee s business, but are not directly affected by the implementation of its decisions. It is hoped that committees will act as forums in which problems can be constructively discussed by a widely representative group. In 2010 there was a major re-organisation of the College s committee structure. If the committee you chaired, convened or took minutes for disappeared during the re-organisation please contact the records management officer for advice on what to do with your old committee records. Statutes and Ordinances Some of the committees have their own ordinances which set out their terms of reference and other information such as how often they should meet and what their membership should be. The Ordinances are to be found on the College website at The College statutes also provide information about College committees. The Statutes can be found on the College website at Hard copies of ordinances and statutes can be obtained from the records management officer. Where there is no ordinance, terms of reference for a committee may already have been written. Each committee should have a statement of its purpose and responsibilities and where none exist the committee should draft terms of reference and refer them to Council for approval. Committee web pages Each committee has their own webpage on the College Local Committees page of the College intranet ( For each committee details of the purpose are given, along with a link to the relevant ordinance (if one exists). The page also gives contact details for the chair, convenor and secretary, a link to the publicly available minutes and a link to CamTools. If you would like to put further information about a committee onto the relevant page please contact the webmaster. 4

5 Committee roles and responsibilities 1. Chair Each committee should be chaired by someone who is independent from the day-to-day business with which the committee is primarily concerned. In many cases this is the Mistress, Vice-Mistress or another Fellow. The role of the chair is to ensure that the meeting is conducted in an orderly manner, that the agenda is followed and that discussions are properly concluded within the time available. The chair may also have to decide how to resolve any disputes that arise e.g. by taking a vote. The chair should ensure that responsibility for each action agreed by the committee is allocated to one of its members for execution, and a date by which the action should be completed is agreed and documented in the minutes. The chair should review the minutes before they are distributed to the other members of the committee. The chair should sign and date a copy of the minutes as a true record of the proceedings however informal. This will usually be done once the minutes are approved by the committee at the following meeting. 2. Convenor The convenor calls the meeting, puts together the agenda and ensures that it is backed up by whatever papers are necessary to ensure that everyone attending the meeting has a chance to be properly briefed about its business. It is intended that the convenor should be the person who has the greatest understanding of the issues arising, and the decisions that need to be taken. It will normally be someone who works in a relevant department or discipline e.g. the Warden of Wolfson Court convenes the Heath and Safety Consultative Committee, the Personnel Officer convenes the Personnel Committee. The dates for most committee meetings are set out in the College Calendar. If not, then the convenor must decide how often the committee is going to meet and contact other members in order to find convenient dates and times (Doodle may be useful for this: 3. Secretary The secretary may have responsibility for the agenda but their primary role is to take the minutes of the meeting and to make sure that a draft is sent to the members of the committee as soon as possible after the meeting, once they have been agreed by the chair. The draft minutes should be available within 14 days of the meeting so the discussions are still fresh in the minds of all the committee members. An action list, detailing who was tasked to do what and by when, should usually accompany the draft minutes. Draft minutes are normally approved as a true record at the following meeting, after which they should be signed and dated by the chair and then should not be changed. The secretary is also responsible for ensuring the signed minutes, and accompanying agenda and papers are kept according to the records retention schedule guidance and passed to the webmaster for uploading to the College website if appropriate. 5

6 Committee agendas, papers and minutes Preparing for the meeting 1. Agenda and papers The agenda should be prepared well in advance of the meeting. The first step in the preparation is to circulate details of the meeting and ask for agenda items. This should ideally be done about 2 weeks before the meeting, giving committee members 1 week to send in any items. Asking for agenda items can be done using the committee lists (click on internal contact list at The papers can then be collated and an agenda created. The agenda and the papers should then be uploaded to the relevant committee area of CamTools, a zip file of the documents created 1, and an announcement made to inform committee members that the agenda and papers are available. If there are lots of substantial papers for members to read, it is a good idea to upload them more than 1 week in advance to allow plenty of reading time. Details of how to name files in CamTools can be found on page 9. An annotated agenda, produced by the chair, convenor or secretary can also be useful. This can help the chair conduct the meeting by providing them with additional information and is also useful for the secretary as it helps with minute taking to have some information already recorded. See Appendix II for an agenda template. The convenor/secretary will need to ensure that a meeting room is booked for the meeting and refreshments have been ordered if required. They will also be responsible for arranging other items such as a laptop and data projector if the committee wants to have the agenda and papers projected onto a screen (this may save committee members having to print out papers to refer to in the meeting). 2. Minutes It is useful to read previous copies of the minutes from the committee to gauge style, layout and detail, though do not be afraid to do things differently if you find it easier. Reading past minutes will also help you to know the types of issues the committee usually discusses. As secretary, make sure you have adequate writing materials: an A4 pad rather than something smaller and plenty of pens and/or pencils. Some secretaries find it easier to prepare their papers in advance, for example by writing out the agenda titles and any information they already have or by dividing their pages into columns for main text and actions. 1 As of October 2011 there was a problem with creating zip files within CamTools. A zip file can be created outside CamTools and uploaded as a normal file to ensure zip files are still available for those who find them useful. 6

7 The secretary should also take along a final copy of the minutes from the previous meeting so these can be signed (and dated) as a true record of the meeting by the chair. At the meeting Don t be late! This will put you on the back foot from the start of the meeting. The chair and secretary should try to sit next each other and any notes they have that may be helpful should be exchanged. While the chair signs and dates the previous set of minutes as the official copy, the secretary should check whether the committee are happy for them to be published on the College website or whether they would like anything removed. As the meeting progresses do not be afraid to ask for clarification of discussion points before the next agenda item. If you decide to make use of a laptop and data projector to display the agenda and papers, a nominated member of the committee should take responsibility. Usually this will be the convenor but if convenor and secretary are the same person, another member of the committee needs to volunteer. The job simply involves making sure the agenda or relevant paper is displayed on the screen at the appropriate time. Writing minutes can be quite a difficult task. As a general rule it is best to summarise clearly and concisely what was discussed and why, and what decision was taken or action agreed. It is not necessary to record everything that is said at a meeting (verbatim notes), or to attribute every comment that is made (unless this is requested). Use your own abbreviations to make notetaking quicker and make a note of any points to clarify with the Chair after the meeting. Annotating the agenda as the meeting progresses may also be useful. See Appendix III for a minutes template. 7

8 After the meeting Try to type up the minutes as soon as possible after the meeting so that discussions are still fresh in your mind. Don t worry too much at the early stage about getting the layout and formatting right, it s more important to get the information written down and then you can sort out the layout. Once typed up, minutes should be sent to the chair who can check the draft and suggest any corrections or changes. Once these have been made the draft minutes should be uploaded to CamTools (labelled as draft) and an sent to the rest of the committee letting them know the minutes are ready. This should ideally happen within 2 weeks, so the meeting is still fresh in people s minds. As the minutes will be approved at the next meeting they can be uploaded to the folder for the next meeting. Reserved and Unreserved minutes Reserved minutes contain the full minutes of the meeting which will include confidential discussions, sensitive discussions of a commercial, personal or financial nature and matters relating to security, environmental issues or health and safety risks. A guide to the types of discussions that might be considered for reserved minutes can be found in Appendix IV. These minutes should be clearly labelled as Reserved (e.g LibraryCommitteeMinutesReserved). Any papers that are reserved should also be clearly labelled as such. Unreserved minutes are accessible to everyone via the website once they have been approved. They should contain no sensitive or confidential information as this should have been removed. For reserved items simply leave the title of the confidential section in the unreserved minutes with a note to explain it is reserved, e.g. 3.4 Computer Office reserved. Unreserved minutes should be written with a view to them being publicly accessible. Use titles or roles rather than names in the minutes and expand abbreviations if they are uncommon. If there is reserved business in your committee two full sets of minutes should be produced rather than just having a paragraph on a separate sheet that is reserved. It makes much more sense to see the reserved discussions in the context of the whole meeting. Changing minutes Minutes are usually signed as a true record at the following meeting. However, what do you do if at the following meeting changes to the minutes are required? If very minor changes are needed, e.g. a name or date is wrong, simply ask the Chair to correct the minutes by hand and sign as normal. The change should be minuted in the following way: The Minutes of the meeting of [insert date] were approved and signed subject to the following change: [insert details of change, e.g. Minute 5 should read The change took place on the 5 th July 2010 rather than The change took place on the 6 th July 2010 ]. 8

9 The electronic copies sent to the Webmaster and uploaded to CamTools should be changed to reflect the necessary alteration. If lots of changes are needed, these should all be noted down and a fresh copy of the minutes produced for signing to reflect the changes. The minutes of the following meeting should list all the changes that took place. If you are in any doubt please contact the records management officer or assistant computer officer. Minutes management, preservation and publication Committee minutes and their supporting papers are vital records of College activities. Once the minutes are approved (at the next meeting) a final or approved copy should be uploaded to the committee s Approved Minutes folder on CamTools. If agreed, a copy of the unreserved minutes should be sent to the webmaster for the website. An electronic copy of the agenda, papers and approved minutes should also be sent to the records management officer. Minutes should be saved as a.pdf file with the full committee name and date of the meeting concerned included in the file title, with details of whether they are reserved or unreserved minutes, e.g Library CommitteeMeeting LibraryCommitteeAgenda LibraryCommitteePaperItem LibraryCommitteePaperItem LibraryCommitteeMinutesReservedDraft LibraryCommitteeMinutesUnreservedDraft ApprovedMinuted LibraryCommitteeMinutes LibraryCommitteeMinutesReserved LibraryCommitteeMinutesUnreserved LibraryCommitteeMinutes A paper copy of the agenda, papers and signed minutes for each meeting should also be retained by the secretary for eventual transfer to the Semi- Current Records Store (and subsequently to the archive). The general advice is that hard copy minutes and papers should be sent to the Semi-Current Records Store once they are 3 years old (or sooner if there are space constraints). Where the role of secretary is passed on to another individual, it is vital that the minutes and papers (in hard copy and electronic format) held by a secretary are passed to his or her successor. The records management officer, archivist and the secretary to Council should also be informed when the secretaryship of a committee is passed to another individual. 9

10 Further advice and contacts The following can be contacted for more information: Committee roles and responsibilities Committee structures, terms of reference and ordinances Secretary to Council, Judith Drinkwater Minute taking and the use of CamTools The Assistant Computer Officer, Kim Pearson Phone: Management of committee minutes The Records Management Officer, Elizabeth Ennion-Smith Phone: The Archivist, Hannah Westall Phone: Data Protection The Assistant Computer Officer, Kim Pearson Phone: Freedom of Information The Records Management Officer, Elizabeth Ennion-Smith Phone: Webmaster Training: The Records Management Officer and Assistant Computer Officer run training sessions on committee minutes and the use of CamTools. Please contact to arrange a session. A copy of the presentations used can be found on the training page of the College intranet along with word copies of the agenda and minutes template. 10

11 Appendix I: Glossary Ad hoc for a particular purpose. Agenda - A list of items to be attended to at a specific meeting i.e. the programme for the meeting. Adjourn to postpone with the intention of resuming later. Casting vote the final vote cast by the Chair. Convene the formal term used to call a meeting. Convenor person who calls/arranges a meeting. Ex-officio describes a person entitled to attend a meeting because of the importance/relevance of that person s position. Matters arising - Developments arising out of previous discussions that are not listed as separate items on the agenda for the current meeting. Nem con with no-one voting against, but some have abstained (not voted). Nem dis with no-one dissenting (a unanimous decision). Proxy someone entitled to vote on another s behalf. Quorum the minimum number of members of the Committee that must be present before the business of the Committee can be conducted. Remit the purpose for which a committee has been established. Sine die without date - used in relation to an adjournment. Unanimous everyone in favour. Verbatim recorded word for word. 11

12 Appendix II: Agenda Template Date: [Full Date] e.g., 05 November 2008 To: From: Subject: [Full Committee title] e.g., Information Management Committee [From Secretary or Convenor] e.g., The Assistant Computer Officer e.g., Agenda for Meeting on Tuesday 21 st February 2012 at 9.15a.m., in the Old JCR There will be a meeting of the [Full title of Committee] on [Full date] at [Time], in [Location] 1. Apologies for absence AGENDA 2. Approval of the minutes of the last meeting (previously circulated) 3. Matters arising a. [List any points received] 4. [Agenda item title] (standing item) (paper to be tabled) 5. [Agenda item title] (standing item) (paper attached) 6. [Agenda item title] a. [List separate points if necessary] b. [List separate points if necessary] 7. Any other business 8. Date and time of next meeting [Full date and time if known] Distribution: (Chair) (Convenor) (Secretary) Unreserved agenda and papers only 12

13 Appendix III: Minutes Template [Name of Committee] [Full date including year e.g., Tuesday 21 st February 2012] [Time and location e.g., At 12pm in the Old JCR] Minutes [Reserved / Unreserved] Present: Title Initial Surname (Chair) Title Initial Surname (Convenor) Title Initial Surname (Secretary) 1. [Apologies for absence] 2. [Approval of the minutes of the last meeting] [e.g. The minutes of the meeting held on the 14 th November 2011 were approved by the Committee and signed by the Chair as a true record.] 3. [Matters arising] [Reference the number and title of minute e.g., a) Minute 9 Work at Christmas] 4. Agenda item 4 [Discussion] (Summary of comments or verbatim if requested) [Action] (What and who) 5. Agenda item 5 [Discussion] (Summary of comments or verbatim if requested) [Action] (What and who) 6. Agenda item 6 7. [Any other business] [Number or letter the items] e.g., a) Signing minutes; b) Publication 8. [Date and time of next meeting] The next Committee meeting will be held on [Full date and time including year and location if know] e.g., Monday 8 th June 2009 at 12pm in the Old JCR. Optional extras: [Circulation List: (Smaller font size than the rest of document)] Title Initial Surname (Chair) Title Initial Surname (Convenor)

14 Title Initial Surname (Secretary) [Action Points] [Detail of each action and who is to carry it out] [Detail of each action and who is to carry it out] [Detail of each action and who is to carry it out] Or [Action Points] [Detail of each action] Research Records Management in other Colleges [Who is to carry it out] Records Management Officer 14

15 Appendix IV: List of information exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act Information accessible to applicant by other means (e.g. published elsewhere)* 2. Information intended for future publication* 3. Information supplied by, or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters 4. National security 5. Defence 6. International relations 7. Relations within the United Kingdom 8. The economy 9. Investigations and proceedings conducted by public authorities 10. Law enforcement 11. Court records, etc 12. Audit functions 13. Parliamentary privilege 14. Formulation of government policy, etc 15. Prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs 16. Communications with Her Majesty, etc. and honours 17. Health and safety* 18. Environmental information 19. Personal information* 20. Information provided in confidence* 21. Legal professional privilege 22. Commercial interests* 23. Prohibitions on disclosure * Most likely to apply to Girton information 15