Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.

The Chair will draw attention to the emergency evacuation procedure as set out on the Agenda.

The Clerk read out the Emergency Evacuation Procedure.

Apologies were received from Alun Morgan and Councillor Axel Palmer.

To receive any declarations of interest from Members/Officers in respect of matters for consideration at this meeting.

Members who have an interest to declare are asked to:

a)  State the Item Number in which they have the interest;

b)  The nature of the interest;

c)  Whether the interest is personal or personal and prejudicial

There were none.

The Chair will announce any items of urgent business accepted since the agenda was prepared under the Access to Information provisions.

The Monitoring Officer informed the meeting that, in accordance with the directions of the Referrals Sub-Committee, he had met with Councillor Brian Huggett of Englishcombe Parish Council to remind him of his obligations under the Code of Conduct. The Monitoring Officer declared he was satisfied that Councillor Huggett had understood his obligations under the Code.   

At the time of publication, no items had been submitted.

There were none.

To deal with any petitions or questions from Councillors and where appropriate co-opted and added members.

There were none.

1. PUBLIC MINUTES

2. EXEMPT MINUTES

The public minutes were approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

The Committee is asked to consider the Investigating Officer’s report and decide whether it agrees with the Investigating Officer’s finding that there has been no breach of the Code of Conduct.

Note: the papers for this item contain Appendices which are considered exempt from publication under Local Government Act 1972 (amended Schedule 12A) because they contain information relating to an individual.

Before beginning the business relating to this item, the Committee will be asked to consider the Public Interest test (Attached as Appendix 1) and then to determine whether the information is indeed exempt from publication. {Should the Committee decide that the appendix is not exempt, copies will be will be provided for the public}.

Should the committee wish to discuss the contents of the Appendices, the appropriate resolution requiring exclusion of the public will be passed.  

The Committee considered the factors for and against disclosure as contained in Appendix 1 to the report in order to determine whether the information contained in Appendix 2 should be exempt.  Following discussions, it was decided that the session be held in private and so the decision was taken to exclude the public.

The Committee therefore RESOLVED that, having been satisfied that the public interest would be better served by not disclosing relevant information and in accordance with the provisions of section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of schedule 12A of Act as amended

After submissions from the Investigating Officer and questions from the  Members, the Committee RESOLVED unanimously to accept the Investigating Officer’s finding that there had not been a breach of the Code of Conduct by the subject councillor, therefore the case would not proceed to a hearing.   

The meeting closed at 7.05pm.