Agreed in March, still waiting in September
In March full council resolved to get three quotes for resurfacing the car park, to write to the county council about the speed limit on the main road, and to ask the tree warden to look at the oak by the churchyard. The minutes record all three. By September one has happened. Nobody is sure whether the letter to the county was sent. The tree warden says nobody asked.
When a councillor raises it at the September meeting, the clerk looks through old emails to piece together what happened. There is no list of outstanding actions, so the council cannot see what it has agreed but not yet done.
Why decisions stall between meetings
A resolution is a decision, not a task. It becomes a task only if someone writes it down as one, with a person and a date. Most councils have no step between approving the minutes and the next agenda where that happens. The clerk carries a mental list, often very good, but it is invisible to everyone else and does not survive a change of clerk.
| Resolution type | Who usually owns it | Where it gets stuck |
|---|---|---|
| Get quotes | Clerk | Waiting on contractors who do not reply |
| Write to another body | Clerk | Sent, but the reply is never chased |
| Councillor to investigate | A named councillor | No reminder, no report back |
| Refer to a committee | Committee chair | Not on the committee agenda |
| Spend approved | RFO | Order placed, delivery not checked |
The cost of lost actions
Residents see the council agree things and then see nothing happen, which is bad for trust in a small community. Items come back to meeting after meeting as 'update on', taking time without progress. Budgeted money goes unspent while the need remains. And when the clerk leaves, their private list goes with them.
There is a quieter cost too. Councillors who volunteer to look into something and are never reminded end up embarrassed at the next meeting, and some stop volunteering. The workload drifts back to the clerk, who was already carrying most of it. Over a council term, the gap between what was resolved and what was done can become the thing residents remember about the council, far more than the good decisions themselves.
An action log fed by the minutes
- When minutes are approved, each resolution becomes a candidate action. The clerk confirms which need action and which were simply noted.
- Each action gets an owner, which can be the clerk, a councillor, a committee or a working group, and a due date or the meeting it should report back to.
- Owners get an email reminder before the due date, with a link to update the status and add a note. Councillors do not need to log into anything complicated.
- Replies from other bodies, such as the county council's highways team, can be forwarded into the log so the action shows what came back.
- Before each meeting, an outstanding actions report is produced for the agenda pack, grouped by owner and showing anything overdue.
- Completed actions stay in the log with the date and outcome, linked to the original minute.
- Clerk's view: everything outstanding, sorted by due date.
- Councillor's view: only the actions they own.
- Committee view: actions referred to that committee.
- Public view, if the council wants one: a simple list of what is in progress.
How a month looks with the log
After the March meeting, the clerk spends ten minutes confirming actions and owners. The tree warden gets an email asking for a report by the May meeting and a reminder a week before. The letter to the county council is logged as sent, and when no reply comes within the period the clerk set, it appears in the chase list. The September agenda pack includes a one-page action report, so the question 'what happened about the car park?' has an answer before anyone asks.
Do your resolutions go missing?
- There is no list of outstanding council actions.
- Items return to agendas as 'update on' for months.
- Councillors are asked to do things and never reminded.
- Letters to other bodies are sent and not chased.
- The clerk's notebook is the only record of what is pending.