Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the Committee.

The Democratic Services Officer read out the emergency evacuation procedure as set out on the agenda.

There were apologies from Councillor Sally Davis, Councillor Les Kew was her substitute, Councillor Sarah Bevan and Veronica Packham.

At this point in the meeting declarations of interest are received from Members in any of the agenda items under consideration at the meeting. Members are asked to indicate:

(a) The agenda item number in which they have an interest to declare.

(b) The nature of their interest.

(c) Whether their interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an other interest,  (as defined in Part 2, A and B of the Code of Conduct and Rules for Registration of Interests)

Any Member who needs to clarify any matters relating to the declaration of interests is recommended to seek advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officeror a member of his staff before the meeting to expedite dealing with the item during the meeting.

There were none.

The Monitoring Officer announced to the meeting that there was an item of urgent business, a report on Indemnities for Members and Officers.  She explained that at a meeting of Standards Committee on 23^rd October 2014 this report had been agreed and should have gone to Council previously but it had not.  She had reviewed the report and made a few minor amendments which were highlighted in Appendix 1.

The Chair agreed to add this urgent item to the agenda for the meeting and members took some time to read the report.

The Monitoring Officer explained her reasoning for changing the limit to costs incurred up to £2,000 per individual issue, was to prevent any abuse of the indemnity procedure.  During discussion of this issue the importance of the Council being transparent and accountable was raised.  The Monitoring Officer explained that if an indemnity were granted then a decision notice would be published, providing an auditable trail.  It was agreed that subject to a small amendment to reflect this, the report be accepted.

RESOLVED to recommend to Council that they grant an indemnity to members and officers of the Council in the terms set in the appendix to the report, with the agreed amendment see below, and authorise the extension of the Council’s liability under this indemnity in so far as such insurance would be financially prudent.

Appendix 1 - amendment

Section 6 – last sentence to read “… and the Monitoring Officer is authorised to endorse the payment of indemnity to any Member or officer up to a maximum of £50,000, such consent to be recorded in an officer decision notice, where such indemnity is not covered by insurance, and that any sums in excess of that figure must be referred to Council for approval.”

There were none.

There were none.

If members wish to discuss the exempt minutes they will have to consider passing the following resolution:-

“that having been satisfied that the public interest would be better served by not disclosing relevant information, 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(s) of business and the reporting of the meeting be prevented under Section 100A(5A) because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as amended.”

RESOLVED that both the public and exempt minutes of the meeting on 31^st March 2016 be confirmed as a correct record and be signed by the Chair(person).

RESOLVED that the Workplan for the Standards Committee be noted.

If members wish to discuss the exempt appendix they will have to consider passing the following resolution:-

“that having been satisfied that the public interest would be better served by not disclosing relevant information, 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(s) of business and the reporting of the meeting be prevented under Section 100A(5A) because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as amended.”

The Monitoring Officer presented this report.  The appendix in its current format was exempt and it was explained that if there was a wish for the document to be public, this could be achieved by the complaints being noted as either against a Parish Councillor or a Bath and North East Somerset Councillor without names.

RESOLVED that the report be noted and in the future the appendix be changed to be a ‘public’ document.

The Monitoring Officer explained that this was a training item and would take the form of a quiz.  Once the quiz had been undertaken then the answers would be discussed.

Following the quiz the Chair stated, and Members agreed, that it had been a very useful training exercise.

RESOLVED to note the information in the training session.