Agenda item

The Monitoring Officer presented the report. He noted that the new standards regime had now been in place for fifteen months. He felt that it was quicker and fairer than the old system, though parties still felt it was slow. The new role of Independent Person had helped streamline the process. He invited Members to suggest improvements to the complaints handling procedure.

Peter Duppa-Millar, Secretary of the B&NES Local Councils’ Association, pointed out that “may” in the last line of the penultimate paragraph on page 44 should be “must”.

Member pointed out that the following errors:

·  there was no section 5 between the sections numbered 4 and 6

·  “withdrawn” in 11.8 should be “withdraw”

·  the references to section 14 in section 12 should be references to section 12

·  the breakdown by party in the second line of section 13 was incorrect

A Member was concerned that there were no time limits after the 20 days specified in the first paragraph on page 40, which seemed to leave the rest of the process open-ended. A Member said that when she and another Member of the present Committee had proposed the motion to Council to set up a new standards regime, they had said that complaints should be dealt with “efficiently and expeditiously”. Unfortunately, in her view, this was currently not the case. The Monitoring Officer agreed that target timescales should be specified for the various stages of the process, and that the summary report on complaint cases should show performance against the target times and when each stage had been completed.

A Member expressed concern about the provision (second paragraph on page 43) allowing the Monitoring Officer to seek Local Resolution of a complaint after receiving a finding from the Investigating Officer of sufficient evidence of failure to comply with the Code of Conduct. The Monitoring Officer explained that a decision to seek Local Resolution would only be taken after consultation with an Independent Person and the Chair.

Members expressed concern about degree of discretion given to the Chair in section 14: “[The Council] has delegated to the Chair of the Standards Committee the right to depart from these arrangements where they consider that it is expedient to do so in order to secure the effective and fair consideration of the matter.” The Chair agreed that this was too wide and that should be reworded, though she could not recall that she had ever exercised this power.

A Member said she was unhappy with the provision (penultimate bullet point on page 40) allowing a complaint against a “relatively inexperienced” member not to be investigated. In her view the onus was on newly-elected members to learn what was permitted and what was not. She was also concerned about the wide discretion given to the Monitoring Officer to decide that complaints should not be investigated. A Member pointed out that there was high turnover of town and parish councillors and that training on the Code of Conduct might not always be available to them. After discussion, it was agreed that the document should be amended to reflect the practice that decisions by the Monitoring Officer that complaints should not be investigated were taken in consultation with an Independent Person and the Chair.

A Member noted that the writing of a letter of apology was not listed as one of the sanctions available to the Committee in section 11, even though it was a sanction that had been imposed by the Committee. The Chair agreed that it should be included.

A Member suggested that the reserve town and parish members on the Committee should be invited to every meeting in order to increase their learning opportunities.

Members wished to raise issues relating to the complaint determined by the Committee at the previous meeting and to the exempt minutes of that meeting. It was accordingly

RESOLVED that the Committee 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, that the public 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 Schedule 12A of the Act as amended.

Members of the public and the Monitoring Officer withdrew from the room.

After the Committee returned to open session it was RESOLVED:

1.  To note the procedure for handling complaints and to request that it be amended in accordance with the comments of the Committee.

2.  To note the summary of complaints and to discuss it at a future meeting of the Committee.