Issue - meetings

Mrs. D. Warren stated that the views of the Forum were being sought in respect of the development of a programme of training for parish councillors on code of conduct, standards and ethical governance framework issues, as defined by the terminology used by both the Government and the Standards Board.  She added that the proposals for a training programme were first raised at the Area Committee meeting of the County Association of Local Councils (CALC) on 3rd December 2008, where it was considered that the issues which were of particular interest for training included:

§         personal and prejudicial interests (including the register of interests);

§         'dual-hatted' members (where a member may be a parish councillor as well as a district and/or county councillor); and

§         pre-determination and bias.

The Forum were informed that the District Council's Monitoring Officer, through the Standards Committee, had a statutory duty to the parish councils to promote ethical standards.  It was expected that the support and training provided by the Council would meet this requirement, together with any additional training the parish councils may wish to undertake voluntarily, or by way of their association with CALC.

Mrs. Warren also reported that the training would focus on standards and ethics issues but suggested that it may be possible to provide separate training to cover other areas beyond ethical framework issues; for example, the possible future role of parish councils in respect of the determination of Certificates of Lawfulness for Existing Use or Development, as considered (and subsequently deferred) by a meeting of the Council's Planning Committee on 5th January 2009.