How it works
Each summary here is written by a language model and then checked against the minutes, point by point. This page explains both steps and what they can miss.
Where the minutes come from
Each night the site checks the websites of the councils it covers for new minutes and downloads any it finds. The summary and its page numbers come from that PDF, and every meeting links to the council’s own copy.
How a summary is written
A language model reads the text of the minutes and writes a short summary. It lists up to five key decisions, each as a headline with a sentence or two of detail, and up to three other items worth knowing about. When the minutes record what happened to a motion and the check confirms it, the decision is stamped Carried, Lost, Deferred or Noted.
How the check works
After the summary is written, each point in it is checked on its own against the minutes. The model has to quote the passage that supports the point, and the quote must be found word for word in the text taken from the PDF, so a quote the model made up fails.
- A point the minutes support stays as written.
- A point they only partly support is corrected, then checked again.
- A point that can’t be supported is removed.
Each meeting page says when the check ran and how many points were confirmed, corrected and removed, and lists the points that were corrected or removed. If a summary hasn’t been checked yet, its meeting page says so.
What “removed” means
A removed point was not shown to be wrong. It was removed because its wording couldn’t be matched to the text taken from the minutes. Some councils post scanned pages, and the text taken from a scan can be garbled or missing, so the check can remove points that were true. The official minutes are always one tap away.
The order of decisions
Decisions are listed most significant first, as judged by the language model. You may weigh them differently. Each decision shows the page of the minutes it came from, so the minutes’ own order is always there to recover.
Page numbers
The page note beside a decision opens that page of the official PDF. Under each meeting, a strip shows one mark per page of the minutes, with the pages the decisions came from highlighted. For long minutes each mark covers a few pages.
Who runs the site
Minutes in a Second is independent. No council runs it or reviews what it publishes, and it takes no side on any decision.
Spot a mistake?
Email [email protected] with the council, the meeting date and what’s wrong.