VPRS 15419 Finance Committee Minutes and Reports (GRS 760)

Full description

This series contains the minutes and reports of the Finance Committee. These records were accessioned into the Geelong Heritage Centre as one record series. The reason for this would have been because first volume included both minutes and reports.

The committee system is employed by most Victorian councils. A committee may be appointed by a council for any purpose which it is felt would be better regulated and managed by such committee. A committee may be either a standing committee or an occasional committee. Standing committees (in areas such as finance, public works, health, etc.) are appointed to oversee specific matters on an ongoing basis. Such committees submit reports to the council regularly and these are included in the Council Minutes. Occasional committees are appointed for shorter terms to manage such things are arrangements for ceremonial occasions. Membership of committees is made up of some or all of the councillors of the municipality.

The Municipal Institutions Act 1863 (No. 184) introduced provisions that required councils to appoint committees and specified that committee minutes should be kept and signed by the chairman at the following meeting. The Local Government Act 1874 (No. 506) included the requirement that committees report to council. (No prohibition existed against councils operating with committees prior to these acts.) The Local Government Act 1903 (No. 1893) removed the requirement that minutes be kept and added the requirement that committees' reports to council be included in the council minutes. Subsequent legislation including the Local Government Act 1958 (No. 6299) has continued these requirements.

The minutes generally record the names of councillors who attended the meeting, details of agenda items and decisions made. Once the minutes have been confirmed as correct at the following committee meeting, they are signed or certified by the mayor or chairman of the meeting.

Reports were submitted to the Council for council meetings. As such, they would (probably) have been circulated to the councillors in advance of the meeting. Reports were (probably) tabled at meetings.

Each report covered a number of issues that had come to the attention of the engineer (for example) through correspondence from ratepayers or from the council itself in relation to council-initiated projects.