LocalGov Drupal Community Advances Committee Management Proposal with Project Quorum

A proposal within the LocalGov Drupal community outlines an open-source governance tool, Project Quorum, designed to support committee and meeting management in councils. The initiative, referenced by Will Callaghan, co-founder of LocalGov Drupal, is led by Hammersmith & Fulham Council, where a funded discovery phase is currently underway.

The project addresses a functional gap in council digital systems, where Democratic Services teams often depend on proprietary platforms to manage governance processes. Project Quorum proposes a Drupal-based alternative that integrates committee administration, agenda preparation, and public access into a single system.

The planned core build includes tools for managing committees and meetings, producing agendas and minutes, compiling document packs, and enforcing role-based access controls. A public-facing portal and search functionality across committee records are also included. Data migration is part of the initial scope rather than a later addition.

For council staff, the system is intended to provide a central workspace with workflow automation for report submission, review, and publication. Features such as attendance tracking and in-app voting are designed to support both in-person and remote meetings. Members are expected to access annotation tools, offline document viewing, and update notifications.

Residents would access agendas, minutes, and decisions through a public interface integrated with existing council websites. The proposal also includes support for online petitions and full-text search across records. The system is expected to meet WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standards.

As part of the discovery phase, the LocalGov Drupal community is gathering input from councils to validate requirements and assess whether additional features are needed beyond the initial scope. This process is being conducted through a structured survey aimed at Democratic Services teams and other stakeholders.

The initiative follows a shared funding model through the LocalGov Drupal Community Fund. Estimated costs for the core build range between £65,000 and £80,000, with the cost per council decreasing as participation increases. At five councils, the projected contribution is approximately £13,000 per organisation.

Development is expected to be carried out by Chicken, the Drupal agency working with Hammersmith & Fulham Council. Additional features beyond the core scope may be developed separately based on the outcomes of the discovery phase and participating councils’ priorities.

The proposal has received positive feedback from the community. James Watson, digital services leader, described it as

“A really good example of the LocalGov Drupal community going straight to the heart of user need in councils by fixing everyday digital problems.”

The comment reflects a view that such governance tools, while operationally critical, are often deprioritised due to fragmented usage and difficulty in measuring transactional volume.

The proposal remains in the discovery phase, with councils invited to contribute requirements and funding. The project reflects an ongoing effort within the LocalGov Drupal ecosystem to replace proprietary systems with shared, open-source alternatives aligned with public-sector workflows. To participate in the requirements-gathering process, fill in the survey.