52 – The Board shall cause minutes to be made of all appointments of officers made by it and of the proceedings of all General Meetings and of all Board meetings and of sub-committees, including the names of those present, and all business transacted at such meetings and any such minutes of any meeting, if purporting to be signed after approval, either by the chairman of such meeting or by the chairman of the next succeeding meeting, shall be sufficient evidence without any further proof of the facts therein stated.
52.1 – Subject to Article 52 the company, upon request of any person for a copy of any minutes must, if the request is reasonable, give the person with 28 days of the request a copy of the requested minutes.
52.2 – Where such a request is received under Article 52.1 the company:
(a) may withhold information contained in the minutes, and
(b) if it does so, must inform the person requesting a copy of the minutes of its reason for doing so.
Consequently today (29th July 2019) I have emailed two of the above directors with the following:
” I would like to formally request a copy of all the minutes of the Kirkcowan Community Development Trust to date (July 29th 2019) from its date of incorporation on 7th July 2015″
Response from KCDT – 30th July – 14:58
Afternoon Camy
***** forwarded your request to me. Sorry but, since the Trust is not a Scottish public authority, the Freedom of Information Act does not apply and the Trust’s minutes are not in the public domain.
Is there specific information you are looking for? Let me know and I will see what can be provided.
My response 30th July – 17:48
Hi, ****
Thanks for responding so quickly.
My request was not made under the Freedom of Information Act legislation – (FOI)
It was made under your own (KCDT) “Articles of Association” Namely –
52 – The Board shall cause minutes to be made of all appointments of officers made by it and of the proceedings of all General Meetings and of all Board meetings and of sub-committees, including the names of those present, and all business transacted at such meetings and any such minutes of any meeting, if purporting to be signed after approval, either by the chairman of such meeting or by the chairman of the next succeeding meeting, shall be sufficient evidence without any further proof of the facts therein stated.
52.1 – Subject to Article 52 the company, upon request of any person for a copy of any minutes must, if the request is reasonable, give the person with 28 days of the request a copy of the requested minutes.
Given the amount of local interest and the sums of money involved I feel that this is a reasonable request and that the community has some right to have access to this information.
I understand that the trustees may wish to refuse the request – as per article 52.2
52.2 – Where such a request is received under Article 52.1 the company:
(a) may withhold information contained in the minutes, and
(b) if it does so, must inform the person requesting a copy of the minutes of its reason for doing so.
You may or my not be aware that I am publishing any publicly available information on the Kirkcowan web site
https://www.kirkcowan.com/kcdt-publicly-available-info/
(It also has a handy link to the Articles of Association for quick reference.)
and am posting links / updates on the Kirkcowan Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/354311061585372/) page and I will also be publishing any relevant email correspondence regarding the request for information from the Trust
[Out of courtesy I’ve redacted individuals names so far]
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I would also like to remind you of my email of 8th May requesting some general information on the running of the Trust. (as follows)
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I’m (on a personal basis) curious – is there a ‘best practice’ guide for community councils on the basics of ‘how to keep the general community informed’ in the processes of a) – the selection of projects – b) who is involved in the approval of allocating funds.
Also is there a list of (similar) community projects that have been actioned? – as a pool of prospective “good ideas” – and perhaps the benefits or issues etc. ( for the purposes of inspiration ).
I run the kirkcowan.com site and would like to publish a bit more of what’s involved / available in the interests of transparency. We publish the CC minutes but these are usually well after the event and am wondering if there’s any general guidance I should be aware of…
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Grateful for any light you can shed on this matter.
Best Regards, Camy McGregor
Right of Reply
We are more than happy to post responses from any of the Directors of KCDT on this site