Committee Clerk

Job overview
Committee clerks draw up and circulate agendas and papers to committee members, arrange meetings, attend them to take minutes of the proceedings, write up the minutes and do the necessary follow-up correspondence and administrative work.

What do people do in this job?
Committee clerks - known at sometimes as committee or council secretaries send out an appropriate notice to all the members of the committee.

These members notify the clerks of all the matters they wish to discuss and the clerks see to it that the final agenda is circulated to all members in good time before the meeting.

Sometimes the committee members need information, e.g. ?on earlier decisions or matters of policy, which committee clerks can usually provide in view of their broad knowledge of the institution's workings.

The clerks must see to it that conference rooms are ready for meetings at the appointed time.

During meetings committee clerks take notes and are responsible for any tape recordings made.

They must know every person on the committee or council to be able to note who said what, and must follow the discussions closely in order to record exactly what decisions were taken.

After meetings committee clerks write up the minutes with the help of their notes or tape recordings.

They then reproduce them, sometimes with an “action sheet?”? to remind members of what follow-up action is to be taken.

The minutes are then circulated to members for approval, after which they are filed as official documents.

Often committee clerks then have to conduct any correspondence arising from the meeting's decisions.

Committee clerks usually work in a team, and have their own offices and telephones.

They work normal office hours, but sometimes meetings are held after hours, for which they may sometimes receive overtime payment depending on the institution's policy.

What kinds of people are suitable for this career?
Prospective committee clerks must have a good command of the language or languages in which their committees will be working.

They need self-confidence and the ability to work well and diplomatically with people.

They should be good organisers, able to handle confidential information with discretion and to work well under pressure.

What qualifications are needed?
Committee clerks should have a thorough grounding in the particular committee's working language(s?)?, together with a good all-round education enabling them to understand and make an acceptable record of a wide variety of topics discussed, of which they may not have specialised knowledge.