Agenda and minutes

The Independent Chair, Mrs Sue Toland. Welcomed everyone to the meeting.

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

The Clerk drew attention to the emergency evacuation procedure.

Apologies were received from Councillor Sally Davis and Dr Cyril Davies.

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 no declarations of interest.

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

There were no urgent items of business.

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

There were no items from the public.

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

There were no items from councillors or co-opted and added members.

1. PUBLIC MINUTES
2. EXEMPT MINUTES

The minutes of the meeting of 24^th March 2011 were agreed and signed by the Chair.

The Corporate and Community Law Manager introduced this report and explained to Members that this was an opportunity to express their views about the proposals relating to Standards in the Localism Bill. If the Bill becomes law, the current standards framework will cease and Councils will be able to choose whether to adopt a non-statutory code of conduct. If the Council adopts a non-statutory code of conduct, it would have to respond to any written complaints that a member or co-opted had failed to comply with that code.

However, the Bill does not give local authorities the power to impose sanctions on members who fail to comply with a voluntary code. In addition, there is an issue about the position of Independent Members. This is because the current provisions requiring the appointment of Independent Members   would be repealed. Councils would still be able to co-opt non-councillors on to a standards committee as Independent Members, but they would not have voting powers. This issue has been raised with the Government. The current standards regime will continue two months after the Bill receives Royal Assent, which is expected to take place towards the end of the year.

Sue Toland asked whether it was proposed that Parish Councils make their own arrangements under the new provisions and was informed that that was the case. Deborah Russell commented that if the Standards Committee could not apply sanctions, then what was their purpose. Several Members agreed with this observation.

Councillor Roberts stated that one of the aims of the Bill was to make the complaints process less bureaucratic. With regard to sanctions, the publication of a breach of the Code of Conduct could be a deterrent, together with the requirements to make a public apology. This would cover the kind of issues raised in the majority of the complaints that the Committee had dealt with in the past 3 years. With regard to the Independent Members, he felt that they provided a very valuable addition to the membership. Councillor Nick Stevens commented that he felt it was contradictory to have independent members and then deny them a vote. Members also voiced concern about the impact of the proposals on Parish Councils and the implications for the Parish Charter. 

Councillor Roberts made the following proposals for the consideration of the meeting:

a)  That, after the Localism Bill receives Royal Assent, the Council adopts a non-statutory code of conduct based on the current Model Code and establishes a Standards Committee

b)  That the complaints process is reviewed and streamlined to remove unnecessary bureaucracy

c)  That the Council offers an opt-in provision for Parish Councils to utilise the new complaints process in respect of complaints against their members.

Councillor Jackson said that Independent Members should be included in the future membership of the Standards Committee. This was agreed.

The Corporate and Community Law Manager informed the meeting that these proposals would be incorporated in the report to full Council in September. 

The Corporate and Community Law Manager introduced this report which asks the Committee to decide whether it wishes to amend the system for the local assessment of complaints about the conduct of members by notifying the subject member of a complaint that a complaint has been made against them before the complaint is considered by the Referrals Sub-Committee.

Members felt that there should be some kind of vetting process applied to complaints to assess whether the alleged conduct does breach the Code before they are referred to committee. They also agreed that the amount of correspondence could be reduced without disadvantage to the parties involved. Following further discussion, there was unanimous support for notifying the subject of the complaint prior to the sub-committee meeting and for the notification to include the name of the complainant and the relevant paragraphs of the code of conduct that have been breached. 

The meeting asked the Corporate and Community Law Manager and the clerk to the Standards Committee to incorporate the Members’ comments on the complaints process in a report which would be presented to full Council in September.

The Committee is asked to consider the Investigating Officer’s report and decide whether it agrees with the Investigating Officer’s finding about whether there has been a breach of the Code of Conduct.

Note: the papers for this item contain Appendices which are considered exempt from publication under the 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 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.

Following a proposal by Councillor Roberts, seconded by Councillor Jackson, 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. It was decided unanimously 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, that the public should be excluded from the meeting for this 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 the Act as amended.

The Members agreed unanimously that this case should be heard by the local Standards Committee. The hearing date was set for Thursday 21^st July.