A COUNCIL plan to replace written minutes with video clips has been dismissed as ‘inadequate’ by its audit team. 

Last October, Monmouthshire Council said it intended replacing written minutes – the official record of council meetings intended to give an overview of discussions – with links to video recording. 

The authority streams nearly all of its committee meetings, and every full council meeting, live on its You Tube channel.

Since July 2023, it has tried to avoid producing written minutes by publishing a brief summary of each item with a link to the full debate on video.   

But the council’s annual governance statement has listed a review of the minute taking process “to ensure accurate minutes are held of all meetings” as an area for improvement. 

Jan Furtek, council acting chief internal auditor, told the governance and audit committee that the council had wanted to look at “digitising the minute taking process further”, but an internal review showed that links to video clips wasn’t up to standard. 

He said: “The minutes were not adequate for a number of different council committees.

“Minutes would basically not detail the actual discussion, it would just provide a link to a You Tube recording and obviously that doesn’t tell you anything.

“And if You Tube goes down... then our minutes wouldn’t actually accurately reflect any discussion... so that’s something that’s being worked through.”

A report is being prepared for September.