Cabinet minutes

Cabinet and Cabinet committee minutes are the formal record of a decision, and are prepared and published by the Cabinet Office once a Cabinet paper or oral item has been considered by Cabinet or a Cabinet committee.

Minutes are usually based on the recommendations in a Cabinet paper, and updated as appropriate in line with the discussion at the meeting. Note that minutes do not record the discussion that took place. If a Ministers' office needs further background information about a minute they should contact the Cabinet Office.

Staff in Ministers' offices should check the content of minutes relating to their portfolio areas (including papers which their Minister was consulted on) at the time they are published to ensure that they are fully informed of decisions taken at meetings, and can get to work on any follow-up actions required from their Ministers.

The Cabinet Office Secretariat team publish minutes in CabNet as soon as possible after a meeting. Once a minute is published, the status of the submission in CabNet changes from 'confirmed on agenda' to 'considered by committee' or 'considered by Cabinet'.

Report of Committee minutes - Cabinet confirmation of committee decisions

Cabinet committee decisions (those that are recorded in CabNet as 'considered by committee') are confirmed by Cabinet in a Report of Committee. The Report of Committee is generally considered at the next Cabinet meeting following the Cabinet committee meeting, and a Report of Committee minute is published and either confirms or updates the decisions taken by committees.

For each item in the Report (i.e. submission considered by a Cabinet committee), Cabinet will either:

• confirm the minute of the Cabinet committee
  • this is recorded in the Report of Committee minute (listed in CabNet on the Cabinet meeting that the Report of Committee was considered)
• amend the minute of the Cabinet committee – new or amended decisions replace the minute of the Cabinet committee. Sometimes this may involve deferring the item or referring it back to a committee for further consideration.
  • when a minute from Cabinet is issued that replaces a committee minute, both the committee minute and the Cabinet minute are accessible in the committee paper’s submission preview in CabNet.

Access to minutes in CabNet

All users who have access to a Cabinet paper in CabNet will also be able to access the minute. Cabinet Office will also sometimes provide access to only the minute for specific agencies or users as appropriate.

Cabinet users are advised when minutes they have access to are published via:

• the 'My Activities' window on the homepage, which is a real-time notification stream of activity about submissions that a user has access to
• a 'CabNet: Recent Activities' email sent to CabNet users daily, at 10 am and 3 pm, summarising the same notifications (note that users will only receive this email if they have chosen to. To do this, log into CabNet and go into your user profile by clicking on your name on the top right corner of the screen . Select 'update', and click the box marked 'yes' beside 'receive notification digest').

A minute can be accessed by clicking on the active link to the minute reference in the notification, going to the submission through the calendar in CabNet, or using the search function.

Refer to this page for further information about CabNet access.

CabNet: Generic submission states with sequence of published documents

• Final draft – this status indicates that the paper has been submitted by an agency to the Minister, and is ready for Ministerial approval.
• Lodged – indicates that the paper has been lodged following approval by a Minister, and is ready for the preparation of the Cabinet Office summary and consideration by the relevant Cabinet committee or Cabinet.
  • The published draft agenda for the meeting is published.
• Published – indicates that the Cabinet Office summary has been prepared, and the paper and the Summary have been published.
  • The Cabinet Office summary is published (or alternatively after the final agenda is accessible)
• Confirmed on committee/Cabinet agenda – indicates that the paper has been confirmed for consideration by a Committee or Cabinet.
  • The final agenda for the meeting is published.
• Considered by committee/Cabinet – indicates that a decision has been taken by a committee or Cabinet.
  • The Cabinet/committee minute is published.
  • [Following the Cabinet meeting] the Report of Committee minute is published.
  • [Following the Cabinet meeting and only if required] a separate minute is published.