What must a parish council website publish?

What has to be online, and where

Parish and town councils are among the most open parts of government in England, and much of that openness now happens online. A handful of laws set out what has to be published, when, and for how long. This guide walks through the main categories so your clerk can check the council’s website against them.

What applies to your council depends partly on its size. Councils with an annual turnover under £25,000 follow the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities; larger councils have a few extra duties. If you are not sure which applies, your internal auditor or county association can confirm it. This is general guidance, not legal advice.

Meetings and decisions

Residents have a right to attend council meetings and to see the paperwork behind decisions, so the meeting record is the first thing to get right.

• The summons and agenda for every full council and committee meeting, published at least three clear days before the meeting
• Draft minutes as soon as they are ready, then the approved minutes once the next meeting signs them off
• The dates, times and venues of forthcoming meetings, ideally as a rolling calendar
• Reports and supporting papers that go with an agenda item
• Notices of casual vacancies and co-option, and any notice of election

Money and accounts

Financial transparency is where the rules are most specific.

• The Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR): the certificate of exemption or the full return, the annual internal audit report, and the external auditor’s report or certificate
• The Notice of Public Rights and Publication of Unaudited Accounts, shown for the set inspection period each summer, with the exact dates residents can inspect the accounts
• The approved budget and the precept for the year
• Items of expenditure above £100, usually as a list or spreadsheet kept up to date through the year
• Bank reconciliations and a summary of the year’s income and expenditure
• The asset register: the land, buildings and equipment the council owns or looks after
• Details of any grants the council has awarded

Policies and governance

These documents set out how the council runs itself, and residents are entitled to read them.

• Standing orders and financial regulations
• The code of conduct the council has adopted
• The complaints procedure
• A publication scheme, setting out what information is routinely available (most councils adopt the model scheme)
• A privacy notice explaining how the council handles personal data, with any related data-protection or records-retention policy
• A risk assessment, and the relevant employment policies where the council has staff

Transparency Code information

For councils with a turnover under £25,000, the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities pulls several of the items above into one list to publish and keep current:

• All items of expenditure over £100
• End-of-year accounts, the annual governance statement and the internal audit report
• A list of councillor responsibilities
• Details of public land and building assets
• Minutes, agendas and meeting papers

Larger councils publish similar information under the wider Local Government Transparency Code, with a £500 spending threshold and a few extra items.

Councillors and contacts

• The name of every councillor, the ward or area they represent, and a way to contact them
• The register of members’ interests, published and kept up to date
• Contact details for the clerk and, where different, the Responsible Financial Officer

Legal pages the website itself needs

Three pages are about the website as a public service rather than about council business.

• An accessibility statement, covering how well the site meets WCAG 2.2 AA and how to report a problem or ask for information in another format
• A privacy and cookies notice for visitors to the website
• A short explanation of how to make a Freedom of Information request, alongside the publication scheme

Keeping it current

Publishing is not a one-off task. Agendas, minutes and spending information arrive all year, policies come up for review, and the AGAR cycle returns every summer. The value of a council website is that residents and auditors can find the current version quickly, so the practical test is not whether something is online somewhere, but whether someone can find it in under a minute.

Every Parish Council Pigeon website is built around this list, with a clear home for compliance information, agendas and minutes and policies and documents. Your clerk keeps it all current with a content management system for parish councils built for clerks rather than web professionals, and our guide to Assertion 10 explains what the AGAR asks about your website and email. If you would like us to check your current site against this list, get in touch.

Questions clerks often ask