Parish Councils' Representative Report
[To receive an oral report from the Parish Councils' Representatives on any matters of relevance to the Committee.]
Minutes:
Mr. Cypher reported that there had been no meeting of the Bromsgrove Area Committee of the Worcestershire County Association of Local Councils since June, and that the next meeting would be taking place in September.
He stated that he was unsure as to whether all of the Parish Councils within the District had yet met to adopt the Code of Conduct and queried whether that was known to the Monitoring Officer. The MO stated that she thought it was inevitable that this might be the case. Whilst there was a risk associated with any Parish Council not having adopted their Code at this stage, she believed there was nationally an understanding that it would take a short amount of time for that to happen. The advice that the MO was giving was that Parish Councils should, at their earliest opportunity, adopt a Code and advise Officers of both the Code which they had adopted and the date of adoption (enclosing a copy of the relevant minute confirming adoption). Whilst being in a position of not having done this however the Parish Councils would be in breach of the requirements.
Mr. Cypher added that Parish Councils were not particularly happy with the current position whereby Parish Council Representatives no longer had voting rights on standards committees. He stated that the National Association of Local Councils were currently in discussions with Department for Communities and Local Government Ministers regarding a possible amendment on the restoration of voting rights.
RESOLVED that the position be noted.