Website to carry Council agendas and other papers
The Council has agreed that the transcripts of its open business sessions will continue to be made available on the Society’s website and will be supplemented by agendas, supporting paper and minutes of the open business.
At the August
Council meeting, Robert Darracott, director of corporate
and strategic development, reminded the Council of its decision that
from February 2004 the transcripts of open business would be placed on
the website and that the decision would be reviewed after six months.
He said that in July the website transcript pages had received a total
of 330 hits, making a total of 708 over the five months. That showed
that people were finding the transcript and that interest was growing.
It was therefore recommended that the process should continue.
On a related point, there had been comments that people were not able
to refer to the papers discussed by the Council. There was therefore
a second recommendation, that the minutes, agendas and supporting papers
for the open business of the Council should also be placed on the website
at an appropriate time, ie, after Council members received them but before
the meeting.
Linda Stone said that, while she supported the recommendations, she believed
there should be a “health warning” on the website, because
the documents could be taken in isolation. There would only be the documents
supporting the relevant agenda, whereas often those documents would build
upon previous documents, information and committee work, which the members
of Council would be privy to but which might be confidential. Visitors
to the website needed to understand that they were not getting the totality
of the information that might be available.
Clive Jackson asked whether the intention was to leave the material on
the website for the foreseeable future. Ultimately, the amount of material
would be very large indeed.
Mr Darracott said that no decision had yet been made on that, but advice
and proposals would be welcome. The website in its current form was under
review, and changes had been made to address concerns regarding access
to members of the public who might happen upon the website and want to
know more about pharmacists and the organisation.
Graham Phillips asked for reassurance on timeliness. Would the reports
continue to go on to the website a month in arrears?
The Secretary and Registrar said that they were two weeks in arrears.
That was the target.
The Vice-President said that he supported the recommendations but would
like the transcript to be available on the website within seven days.
It was received on the Monday after the Wednesday meeting and could go
on the website by Tuesday night.
The Secretary and Registrar said that on more than one occasion the Society
had had to check back with a member of Council or some other person.
The transcript could not go on the website until it had been confirmed.
The President said that the Council should leave it to the office to
get the transcript on to the website as expediently as possible.
The Council then agreed the two recommendations.
The Secretary and Registrar said that, on the question of timeliness,
the aim was to provide the agendas and support papers on the website
as soon as Council members were deemed to have received them.
The President said that Council members would be justifiably unhappy
if their
agendas appeared on the website before they might reasonably have expected
to receive them. That is why there would be a deliberate delay.
Mrs Stone said that there was an issue about papers going on the website
ahead of the meeting, because there were times during the meeting when
the Council deemed that something down as open business should move into
closed business (or vice versa). The agenda could go on the website ahead
of the meeting, but the papers should not.
The President said that the office should look at the logistics. It was
a sensitive issue. What he was trying to get over was that agendas should
not be on the website before Council members had seen them. The office
would try to come up with a proposal to deal with Mrs Stone’s valid
point.
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal