Issue - items at meetings - Monitoring Officer's Report

Issue - meetings

Monitoring Officer's Report

 

 

Meeting: 26/01/2011 - Standards Committee (this Committee has now been combined wit the Audit, Standrds and Governance Committee and no longer meets) (Item 30)

30 Monitoring Officer's Report pdf icon PDF 98 KB

[To receive a report from the Monitoring Officer on any matters of relevance to the Committee.]

Minutes:

The Committee noted the comments of the Monitoring Officer's (MO's) report and the following issues were raised during the consideration of this:

 

(i)         Member Investigations

The MO advised that the investigation into Complaint Reference 94/09 had been completed and that she was due to receive the Investigating Officer's report within the next few days.  The two remaining local investigations were ongoing. 

 

A question was raised regarding the awaited report on linked Complaint References 03/10 and 04/10, against two Alvechurch parish councilllors, in view of the upcoming local elections, together with the effect any possible sanctions arsing from current investigations generally might have on Members given the proximity of the elections and of the possible need for additional meetings of the Committee to facilitate any associated business.  The MO advised that delays could be encountered with investigations which at first sight appeared straight forward but which could give rise to additional issues being identified during the course of an investigation.  She added that investigations would proceed as planned and that final reports would be brought to the Committee as soon as they were available, with additional meetings of the Committee being arranged as necessary to consider these.       

 

(ii)        Pre-Hearing Meeting

Regarding the complaints against the members of the Labour Group detailed at paragraph 3.2 of the report, the MO confirmed that a pre-hearing meeting of the Committee to look at procedural issues as part of the pre-hearing process was due to take place at 6.00pm on 2nd February 2011.  

 

(iii)       Monitoring Officer's Other Action

The MO advised that having spoken with the Subject Member concerned that day on an unrelated matter, the issue of the outstanding training had been raised and the Member had stated that he would be willing to undertake the required training.  The MO confirmed that she would report back to the Committee on any further developments in this regard in due course.

 

(iv)       Member Training

The MO updated the Committee on the work of the Member Development Steering Group and formulation of the Member Development Programme.  It was noted that dates for training had also been identified for Members at Redditch Borough Council and that, where appropriate, training included support for the parish councils.

 

(v)        Monitoring Officer Liaison Meetings

The Deputy Monitoring Officer reported that the first of the Monitoring Officer Liaison Meetings (MOLMs), which had taken place in October, had been very successful and that officers had received positive feedback on these from the parish clerks/executive officers.  Question and answer sessions had been included for any issues clerks/executive officers wished to raise.  A need for Code of Conduct training for the parishes had been raised, which had been built into the Member Development Programme.  It was noted that the next meeting would take place in March 2011.

 

The Committee noted the usefulness of the meetings and felt that these should continue in the future notwithstanding what might happen to the standards regime following any changes under the Localism Bill.  The Monitoring Officer confirmed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30