A Welsh community council website must publish the council's contact details, each councillor's details, meeting notices at least three clear days ahead, minutes, annual audited accounts, public notices and the register of members' interests.
Why this matters
Section 55 of the Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Act 2013 requires community councils to publish specific information electronically, and Welsh Government has issued statutory guidance that councils must have regard to. The Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 updated that guidance. In practice, your website is now part of how the council meets its legal duties.
The checklist
- Council contact details: telephone, postal address and email, plus the clerk's details if different. Guidance recommends a generic council email rather than a personal one.
- Every councillor's name, how to contact them, any party affiliation, offices held, committee memberships and ward. Co-opted members should be identified.
- Notices of meetings, published at least three clear days before, with the time, how to attend, whether the public can attend, and the business to be discussed.
- Minutes of meetings, and as far as reasonably practicable the documents referred to in them.
- Annual audited accounts.
- Public notices.
- The register of members' interests.
If your council has a Welsh Language Scheme and normally produces material bilingually, the guidance says the same applies to what you publish online. See bilingual websites.
What good looks like
- Agendas and minutes listed newest first, with older years archived but easy to reach from the front page.
- Documents published as accessible web pages or properly tagged PDFs, not scans of paper.
- A clear accessibility statement. Many councils aim for WCAG 2.2 AA, the standard used across the public sector.
- A site the clerk can update in minutes, so notices go up on time.
- The council's own name finds the site on Google. Residents search for it; they rarely type the address.
A quick test for your own site
Search Google for your council's name. Does your website come up first? Open it on a phone: can you find the next meeting date in two taps? Is the latest set of minutes there? If any of those fail, residents are struggling too.
I build community council websites that cover every item above and are simple for clerks to keep up to date, including the Llansannan Community Council site. If you'd like a free check of your current site against this list, get in touch.
Sources
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