Adult and Children’s Social Services; Are minute takers independent from cases.

Dear Thurrock Borough Council,

Within this FOI request, I refer to any person or person(s) taking
minutes within meetings and / or conferences concerning Adult or
Child Social Services, either private meetings between the LA and
professionals or meetings involving service users.

a) Are minute takers employed by the LA or outside agency?
b) Are minute takers independent and impartial to the case between
LA, professionals and service user?
c) Are minute takers briefed by professionals or LA before / after
a case commences?
d) Are minute takers privileged to read any notes, reports or
medical reports on the service user prior to meetings / conferences
and / or after meetings / conferences?
e) Who is responsible for typing up the notes made by the minute
taker? Is it the same person who took minutes at the meeting or
someone else?
f) What is the time scale for the end user to receive their copy of
the minutes?
g) Who is responsible for posting copies of minutes out to end
user?
h) If item (e) or item (g) is a different person or department
responsible for typing / posting copies of minutes, what measures
are taken to avoid contamination of a report? By this I mean
fabricating, or altering minutes in such a way to mislead other
professionals.
i) How many end users have raised concerns or complaint that
minutes taken in a meeting that were inaccurate or misleading in
one way or another. Please provide statistics over the last 5
years, year by year.

Yours faithfully,

Sheila Hersom