Hospital Board To Have Secret Minute Book

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30172, 2 July 1963, Page 14

Hospital Board To Have Secret Minute Book

(New Zealand Press Association) WHANGAREI, July 1. The Northland Hospital Board is to have two minute books, one of them secret. The board chairman (Mr P. M. E. Williams) today outlined to members the proposed meeting procedure designed to meet the requirements of the Public Bodies’ Meeting Act.

He said, in future, board members would receive two agendas for each meeting. One would contain ordinary items of business for discussion in open board. Confidential items would be listed on a separate agenda which would be taken last and after a resolution by the board that the public be excluded. The minutes of this part of the meeting would be recorded in a special minute book, said Mr Withams. In excluding the public the board would not be going into committee and would not have to confirm in open board decisions that had been taken in committee, he said.

The secretary (Mr A. G. Wilson) said the system was the same as that adopted by

the Wellington Hospital Board. He said the confidential minute book would only be open to board members and four members of the staff—the secretary, the assistantsecretary, the accountant and the medical superintendent A special resolution of the board would be required for the book to be made available for perusal by anyone else. Mir Williams said board members could, on request, have any other items on the ordinary agenda transferred to the confidential list or vice versa.

The special agenda today included items normally taken in committee and dealt mainly with staff salary reviews, Mr Wilson told reporters.