What we hold: coverage
If a search finds nothing, you need to know whether nothing was said or whether we haven’t collected the papers. The Coverage page and each organisation’s page say what we hold.
What each status means
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Complete | We hold the published public board papers for every year we cover, up to the end of last year, checked against the organisation’s website. Checks may be made by a person or by AI authorised by Minute Book. |
| Partial | We hold some of their papers, but can’t yet say we have every public board meeting. A search may miss things said at meetings we don’t hold. |
| Being added | We have started collecting their papers. Some may not be searchable yet. |
| Not yet collected | We have none of their papers yet: we haven’t reached them, or their website doesn’t allow automated collection. |
| Archived record | The organisation has closed or merged. Its papers stay searchable under its old name, linked to the organisation that replaced it. |
Example
A trust shown as Partial may still have every meeting’s papers. We just can’t say so yet.
How the years are checked
We only call a year Complete after its published public board papers have been checked against the organisation’s own list of meetings and papers. A person or an AI reviewer authorised by Minute Book can make this check. Collecting everything a crawler can find is not enough. The review must reconcile meeting dates, packs and separately published papers, with source links and an account of the check.
The current year never counts as Complete, because more meetings may take place. A year stays Partial while a gap or unresolved warning prevents confirmation. An organisation can also be Partial when we hold papers for every meeting we know of but have not yet checked the published list.
Coverage review does not approve a claim that something was not found. Those claims still need a separate human decision and use the words “Not found in the board papers we hold.”
Example
An organisation’s page might show 2023 as Complete and 2024 as “Not yet checked against the published list”, even though we hold papers for every 2024 meeting we know of.
Why a year isn’t Complete
An organisation’s page lists its years and says why each one isn’t Complete yet:
- Not yet checked against the published list.
- We know of meetings whose papers we don’t hold.
- We don’t yet have a record of a meeting that year.
- We don’t hold papers for that year yet.
- The year isn’t over.
- Status set after a review.
These reasons are about what we hold and have checked, not about what an organisation publishes.
Example
“We know of meetings whose papers we don’t hold” means a meeting is listed somewhere but we haven’t collected its papers. It doesn’t mean the organisation didn’t publish them.
What we can show: whole document or short passages
Each organisation’s papers also say what we can show, which decides whether you can read our copy of them:
- Whole document: you can search all of it and read the whole document here. The organisation publishes it under the Open Government Licence, or has agreed that we can show it.
- Short passages: you can search all of it. We show a short passage, then link you to the full paper on the organisation’s website.
- Short passages (permission asked): the same, and we have asked the organisation if we can show the whole document.
See Reading documents for what each means when you open a paper.
Example
Searching a trust where we show short passages works just as well. You read a short passage in the results, then follow the link to the original on the trust’s website.