Agenda item

Minutes:

The Director of Legal and Governance (and Monitoring Officer) presented the report and firstly took Members through progress in relation to implementation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life best practice recommendations, incorporating where applicable the recommendations from the recent informal Standard Working Group. 

 

Members fully considered each recommendation in turn and agreed their progress/implementation as required.

 

Secondly, the Committee considered the new draft Members Code of Conduct that was a hybrid version of the Council’s current code and the new Model Code of Conduct as produced by the Local Government Association (LGA).

 

Members had already debated the content of the new Code at length through the informal Standards Working Group and the draft was now being presented to Committee for final consideration prior to its submission to the Annual Council Meeting in May 2021.

 

The informal Standards Working Group had however, highlighted five areas for final consideration prior to approval and these were in relation to the following:

 

·       to agree the definition of what was included as a Disclosable Personal Interest

 

·       to consider if declarations of interest should be registered in advance or to stay with the current Council process of registering interests at the start of a meeting

 

·       to consider whether the wording for “Non-disclosable Pecuniary/Other interest” should be changed to “Non-Registrable Interests”

 

·       to consider if Members should continue with the Council’s current approach to Member involvement in discussion and voting after declaring interests at a meeting

 

·       whether to state in the Code a financial value (£50) for a gift or hospitality that is declined, or to update the Code to the more recent version of a “significant” gift only.

 

RESOLVED that

a)    the updated position regarding the implementation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life best practice recommendations and to include the ongoing work to the Committee’s Work Plan for 2021/22, be approved as follows:

 

 

Best Practice:

Agreed:

1.

Local authorities should include prohibitions on bullying and harassment in codes of conduct. These should include a definition of bullying and harassment, supplemented with a list of examples of the sort of behaviour covered by such a definition

 

The new Member Code of Conduct, as recommended to Council for approval, contains the bullying and harassment definitions based on those in the LGA’s Model Code of Conduct

2.

Councils should include provisions in their code of conduct requiring councillors to comply with any formal standards investigation and prohibiting trivial or malicious allegations by councillors

The new Member Code of Conduct, as recommended to Council for approval, contains provisions based on those in the LGA’s Model Code of Conduct (including some current Council wording)

 

The Complaints Process, to be reviewed by the Standards and Personnel Appeals Committee as part of their 2021/22 Work Plan

 

3.

Principal authorities should review their code of conduct each year and regularly seek, where possible, the views of the public, community organisations and neighbouring authorities

Consultation on the new draft Code to be undertaken through existing channels such as the Citizens’ Panel, the Youth Council and the Council’s website and social media platforms, prior to submission to the Annual Council Meeting in May 2021

 

4.

An authority’s code should be readily accessible to both councillors and the public, in a prominent position on a council’s website and available in council premises.

In the event that Council adopts the revised Code at its Annual Meeting in May 2021, the document will be prominently placed on the Council’s website to be accessible to both Councillors and public alike

 

5.

Local authorities should update their gifts and hospitality register at least once per quarter, and publish it in an accessible format, such as CSV

 

Agreed to develop a Register on the Website and to introduce quarterly reporting through the Standards and Personnel Appeals Committee

6.

Councils should publish a clear and straightforward public interest test against which allegations are filtered

The Council’s Complaints Process, to be reviewed as part of the Standards and Personnel Appeals Committee’s Workplan for 2021/22 will include such a public interest test and be prominently published on the Council’s website

 

7.

Local authorities should have access to at least two Independent Persons

 

Procedures already in place with access to two Independent Persons

8.

An Independent Person should be consulted as to whether to undertake a formal investigation on an allegation, and should be given the option to review and comment on allegations which the responsible officer is minded to dismiss as being without merit, vexatious, or trivial

 

Procedures already in place and will remain in the updated Complaints Process once reviewed by the Standards and Personnel Appeals Committee as part of its Workplan for 2021/22

9.

Where a local authority makes a decision on an allegation of misconduct following a formal investigation, a decision notice should be published as soon as possible on its website, including a brief statement of facts, the provisions of the code engaged by the allegations, the view of the Independent Person, the reasoning of the decision-maker, and any sanction applied

 

Procedures already in place and will remain in the updated Complaints Process once reviewed by the Standards and Personnel Appeals Committee as part of its Workplan for 2021/22, including publication on the Council’s website

10.

A local authority should have straightforward and accessible guidance on its website on how to make a complaint under the code of conduct, the process for handling complaints, and estimated timescales for investigations and outcomes

 

Procedures already in place (complete with access to an electronic complaint form) and will remain in the updated Complaints Process once reviewed by the Standards and Personnel Appeals Committee as part of its Workplan for 2021/22

11.

Formal standards complaints about the conduct of a parish councillor towards a clerk should be made by the chair or by the parish council as a whole, rather than the clerk in all but exceptional circumstances

 

Review of Parish Council and Monitoring Officer roles and procedures to be undertaken in the forthcoming municipal year, in conjunction with Parish Council representatives

12.

Monitoring Officers’ roles should include providing advice, support and management of investigations and adjudications on alleged breaches to parish councils within the remit of the principal authority. They should be provided with adequate training, corporate support and resources to undertake this work

 

Review of Parish Council and Monitoring Officer roles and procedures to be undertaken in the forthcoming municipal year, in conjunction with Parish Council representatives

13.

A local authority should have procedures in place to address any conflicts of interest when undertaking a standards investigation. Possible steps should include asking the Monitoring Officer from a different authority to undertake the investigation

 

Discussions taking place at a County level to develop reciprocal arrangements for accessing monitoring officers from neighbouring authorities

14.

Councils should report on separate bodies they have set up or which they own as part of their annual governance statement and give a full picture of their relationship with those bodies. Separate bodies created by local authorities should abide by the Nolan principle of openness, and publish their board agendas and minutes and annual reports in an accessible place

 

No action required at this present time

15.

Senior officers should meet regularly with political group leaders or group whips to discuss standards issues

Agreed to facilitate ad hoc meetings as required at the Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer’s discretion

 

b)    the new draft Member Code of Conduct, as appended to the report, be approved and recommended to Council at its Annual Meeting on 20 May 2021, for approval.

Supporting documents: