Town Deal papers live on the council

Town Deal papers on this index are papers of the council that published them. There is no national Town Deal catalogue. A board minute is a minute. It is not a funding database and not a second body. If the council did not publish the pack, we do not invent the pack.

Open Sefton Council and read the titles. A paper that says Town Deal, Town Board, or Neighbourhood Board is a Sefton paper. It is already inside Sefton's count. There is not another Sefton page to open for the deal. Birmingham City Council works the same way. Birmingham's papers stay on Birmingham. The deal does not merge the two councils.

How to follow Town Deal and housing papers is the longer guide. It includes the hole: a town with no such titles here is a town whose titles we do not hold. That is not proof the board never met. No file means no file.

Ordinary cabinet papers sometimes carry the decision without those words in the filename. Read the first page. If the masthead is the council, cite the council. Filename search finds candidates. The PDF decides what you found. A housing association's board pack, where we track the association, stays on the association even if a council nominates members.

A company named in a Town Deal paper is a name in a paper, unless the paper prints a company number. Do not build a national story by stacking filenames from several towns. Stack citations you opened. One council is one citation. Two councils are two.

The Sources catalogue is how you move to the next council when you are ready. It does not reward opening a neighbour because a project must have been discussed there. The neighbour's papers are about the neighbour until the text says otherwise.

Count papers, not towns. One council may have a thick pile of Town Deal titles and another town a single report that never uses the phrase. Both are whatever the pages show. Do not rank the towns. Do not describe a thick pile as a more active board. Activity is not what a filename count measures. It measures files we hold. When you have read the first page of each file you mean to use, you will know whether it is a board minute, a cabinet decision, or a report about a site. Until you have read it, you have a filename. Filenames are for finding. First pages are for citing. Stop at the filename and you are not ready to publish the town.

Combined authorities, where we hold them, are separate bodies with their own papers. A town board hosted by a council is not the combined authority. A grant discussed at the combined authority is that body's paper. Do not file it under the town because the town is mentioned. File it under the masthead. Then, if the town council also published, cite the town council too. Two mastheads, two citations.

Housing association accounts and board packs are not Town Deal papers merely because homes are being built. Look at who published. Sefton Council remains the example of a council page that already holds whatever Town Deal titles Sefton published. You do not need a second path. You need the titles on that page, read one by one. When the list is long, read the ones you will cite and leave a line in your notes for the ones you did not open. Unopened titles are not evidence. They are a queue. A queue is allowed. Pretending you read it is not. Leave the queue in the notebook, not in the piece.