Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.

The Clerk drew attention to the Emergency Evacuation Procedure.

Apologies were received from Councillor Axel Palmer.

There were no declarations of interest.

There was none.

There were none.

There were none.

The minutes of the meeting on 21^st July 2011 were agreed as a correct record.

Paper to follow.

Code of Conduct

The Monitoring Officer introduced the report and informed the Members that the new Standards Regime was due to start on 1^st July 2012. He referred the Committee to the extract from the minutes of the full Council meeting of 15^th September 2011 (Appendix 1) which detailed the recommendations for improvements to the Standards regime as proposed by the Standards Committee. In particular, he confirmed that there was general agreement about adopting a code of conduct and that the principal Council (i.e. B&NES) would deal with breaches of the Code.

The Monitoring Officer informed the Committee that Appendices 2 and 3 to the report were examples of draft codes of conduct from the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).  Regulations were still awaited from the government. He invited the Members to give their opinions on these draft codes. He also sought their views on the establishment of a Standards Committee and its Terms of Reference and Membership. The report being presented to the full Council meeting on 10^th May 2012 will include the assumption that there would be a B&NES Standards Committee. 

Membership

The Chair, after conferring with Members, confirmed that there was unanimous support for establishing a Standards Committee under the new regime. The Members also confirmed that they wished the new regime to continue with independent members and parish representatives. The Monitoring Officer reminded Members that these co-opted members would have no voting rights, but that as in most cases the Committee acted on a consensual basis, this requirement was unlikely to have a great effect. Deborah Russell asked whether the independent members could only sit for five years and was informed that that only applied to the new role of the Independent Person.  Councillor Nigel Roberts pointed out that there may be a need to have more B&NES councillors on the Committee to create a voting body. The Monitoring Officer agreed that there was a trend towards having more representation from the principal authority, but the additional membership would need to comply with the political proportionality rules.  Following this discussion, the Committee agreed that the core membership of the Standards Committtee would consist of:

3 independent members (plus 3 reserves)

3 Parish/Town Council representatives (plus 3 reserves)

B&NES Councillor members (at least 3, but total number to be agreed between party leaders)

Parish and Town Councils

With regard to Parish and Town Councils, it was agreed that there needed to be a simpler and more transparent model for the administration of complaints. Councillor Tony Crouch suggested that a presentation to the next Parishes Liaison meeting might be useful. The Chair added that the issue needed to be discussed individually with councils and Councillor Nigel Roberts suggested that the consultation with parishes begin after the next full Council, possibly suggesting adoption of the LGA model. However, the Council Solicitor pointed out that neither the LGA nor the DCLG codes were comprehensive and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.