Issue - meetings

[To receive a report from the Monitoring Officer on matters of relevance to the Committee, and to include the following:

(a)       Member Investigations and Associated Matters;

(b)       Complaints for Local Assessment;

(c)        Member Training;

(d)       Issues Arising from Standards Committee Training;

(e)       Training - Parish Councils;

(f)        Terms of Office of Parish Councils' Representatives on the Standards Committee;

(g)       Cardiff University Case Study; and

(h)       West Mercia Forum of Independent Members.]

The Committee noted the report of the Monitoring Officer contained in the agenda papers and the following issues were raised:

Member Investigations and Associated Matters

Officers advised that a draft report detailing the Investigating Officer's findings in relation to two linked complaints against a district councillor had been received from the Standards Board for England ("SBE").  The SBE had sent a copy of the report to the subject Member, complainant and Monitoring Officer, all of whom had until 22nd December 2008 by which to submit comments on this.  Once the final report had been received a date would be set for the Committee to consider the findings.

Member Training

It was reported that the Cabinet Procedure Rules training which had been due to take place the previous evening had had to be postponed and that this would now take place at a later date.  Officers would also shortly be making the necessary arrangements for the Chairmanship Skills training for the Standards Committee's Independent Members to take place, which was to be conduced by the Monitoring Officer early in the New Year. 

Issues Arising from Standards Committee training

(i)         SBE Guide to the Code of Conduct

               Emphasis was being placed by officers on the importance of Members completing and keeping up to date their Register of Interests forms, with workshop style sessions on this having also taken place with the parish councils.

(ii)        Public awareness of the role of the Standards Committee    

            Officers advised that a new local performance indicator would be coming into effect in the Spring of 2009 which would look at the percentage of people who were aware of the elected Member complaints system.  As such, further emphasis would be placed on this and the role of the Committee in the New Year. 

            It was the majority view that the name of the Committee did not need to change, but that it was important to raise public awareness of the role of the Committee and to ensure that any associated publicity reinforce the fact that the Committee was responsible for the conduct of both parish and district councillors. 

(iii)       Chairing of Standards Sub-Committees

            The Committee felt that whilst it would be preferable to have separate chairmen in place for meetings of an Assessment Sub-Committee and Final Determination Sub-Committee which were looking into the same matter, should the logistics of this prove to be difficult then the same chairman could chair both meetings as the chairman of the Assessment Sub-Committee should not, in any way, have compromised themselves given the nature of the initial assessment process.

(iv)       Redditch Borough Council's Standards Committee

            It was noted at the Standards training on 3rd November 2008 that Redditch Borough Council's Standards Committee had not, at that stage, dealt with any complaints against councillors under local assessment.  In view of this, together with changes which had been brought about by the Standards Committee (England) Regulations 2008 which meant that an independent member of one standards committee could also sit  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46