Agenda item - Review of the Local Assessment Regime

Agenda item

Review of the Local Assessment Regime

[To receive a report on the findings of the review undertaken by officers on certain aspects of the local assessment of complaints about Members regime.]

Minutes:

Further to Minute 59/08 of the 31st March 2009 meeting of the Committee, a report was received on the findings of the review undertaken by officers on aspects of the local assessment of complaints about Members regime.  The Deputy Monitoring Officer provided an overview of the key aspects of the report and the following were noted/agreed:

 

(i)       Publicity to and promotion of the ethical framework and complaints

          process

 

Members were advised of the various methods which were to be used in publicising and promoting the ethical framework and standards regime.  A new "brand" was to be developed for use in all publicity, literature, information etc., which it was anticipated would be implemented in September 2009, following the Council's adoption of the new members' Code of Conduct.  The primary aim of the new branding was to portray the positive benefits of the framework, in a language that was not legalistic and which would therefore be easily understandable to the public.  The introduction of the new branding would coincide with the launch of the Council's new website and it was proposed that there a high profile press release, or series of releases, to promote the standards regime.  Regular updates on progress in this regard would be given in future Monitoring Officer Reports.

 

(ii)      Assessment criteria

 

The Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that an immediate change was required to the Standards Assessment Sub-Committee Assessment Criteria form to specify whether, at the time of the alleged breach of the Code of Conduct, the subject member was acting in either a personal or official capacity.  Such a change was necessary as, save for conduct which constituted a criminal offence and which had resulted in a conviction, the Code currently only applied to Members acting in an official capacity.  It was noted however that this issue might need to be revisited following the introduction of the new Code of Conduct, and that the form was an ever evolving document which was under constant review.

 

(iii)     Notification of complaint to subject member prior to assessment

 

Members noted the legal advice detailed in the report as to whether or not a subject member should be notified of a complaint prior to the complaint having been assessed: in particular, the prohibitions in place under s63 of the Local Government Act 2000 on the disclosure of any information obtained by a monitoring officer in the course of performing any of his or her duties relating to complaints about members, except in specified circumstances.  Were the Committee to decide that it intended to notify the subject member of a complaint prior to assessment, the only information which could be given to the subject member at that stage was the fact that a complaint had been made, the name of the complainant (subject to Data Protection and any request by the complainant for confidentiality) and the relevant paragraph(s) of the Code which may have been breached.  A written summary of the actual allegation could only be provided once the Assessment Sub-Committee had met to consider the complaint. 

 

Members agreed that there was little point in making such a notification to the subject member prior to assessment, particularly as no details as to the nature of the complaint could be given.  As such, it was agreed that the existing practice of notifying the subject member once an initial assessment decision had been made should continue, and that the position be kept under review, particularly should any changes be made to the Standards Board's guidance on this.

 

(iv)     Decision notices

 

It was noted that the content and format of the template decision notices/letters were to be reviewed, together with the separate decision notices required under Regulations 8 and 11 of The Standards Committee (England) regulations 2008, and that proposals in this regard would be brought back to the Committee.

 

(v)      Review of assessment decisions

 

Members considered the two separate schools of thought detailed in the report as to what constituted a review of an assessment decision, namely: whether a review should be a re-hearing of the assessment hearing by a different group of members, based on the same information given to the initial Assessment Sub-Committee; or whether this should be a review of the soundness of the decision-making process followed by the Assessment Sub-Committee.  Although the Standards Board advocated the initial of these approaches, officers had been advised by specialist solicitors that this was not the correct approach, and that if the review hearing was effectively an assessment hearing then theoretically it should also be capable of being subject to review.

 

On balance, members agreed that the re-hearing approach was the most appropriate as from a public perception six different members of the Committee would have considered the matter, with there also being the ability for the Review Sub-Committee to reach a different conclusion should this be deemed appropriate.  

 

(vi)     Parish Councils publicity and promotion of the standards regime and

          complaints process

 

The Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that she would be liaising separately with the Parish Councils' Representatives on this matter and it was agreed that an item in this regard should be placed on the agendas of the Parish Councils' Forum and/or the Bromsgrove Area Committee of the Worcestershire County Association of Local Councils ("WCALC"), as appropriate.

 

(vii)    Parish Councils - notification of complaints

 

The Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that she would also be liaising separately with the Parish Councils' Representatives on this matter, again with a view to placing an item on the agenda for the relevant meeting of the Parish Forum and/or WCALC.  Members felt that it would be useful for parish clerks to have an agreed procedure to follow when receiving notification of a complaint about one of their Members, as this would assist in avoiding any difficulty or embarrassment a clerk might face when publicising a complaint.    

 

(viii)   Composition of the Standards Committee

 

As the Committee had yet to undertake a final determination of a complaint which it had assessed, it was felt inappropriate to make any recommendations to the Council regarding whether the same members should be able to sit on both the Assessment Sub-Committee and Final Determination Sub-Committee and, equally, whether the size of the Standards Committee should be increased.  It was agreed however that the position should be reviewed once members had gained sufficient experience of final determinations. 

 

Regarding whether a Cabinet member should sit on the Standards Committee, members felt that as the local assessment regime was still in its infancy, and as the Committee was currently determining whether the processes in place were working, it was again inappropriate at that stage to consider such changes, and felt that the position should be reviewed in 12 months time when looking at the other issues relating to the composition of the Committee.  Furthermore, as discussed earlier in the agenda (Minute 08/09 (vi) above refers), the issue of the Committee's links with senior Council officers and politicians, which had arisen as part of the leadership questions contained in the Standards Board's Annual Return, was to be considered separately at the next meeting of the Committee.

 

In relation to the suggestion that the Parish Councils' Representatives on the Committee be required to have been elected, as opposed to having been co-opted, it was the Committee's view that the parishes needed to have confidence in the representatives whom they nominated to sit on the Committee and that it was therefore for the parishes, via the Area Committee of the WCALC, to raise any concerns in this regard. 

 

A separate issue raised under this heading was whether there should be a limit as to the number of members of the Standards Committee who also served on the Council's Planning Committee.  This followed a recent hearing of the Standards Assessment Sub-Committee which the majority of district councillors on the Standards Committee had been precluded from participating in as the complaints in question related to a particular meeting of the Planning Committee, in which the district councillors had had an interest.  The Committee noted that this issue could apply equally to other Council committees and that there was a mechanism in place for district councillors on the Standards Committee to be substituted by another district councillor in such circumstances.  The Monitoring Officer stated that the only issue which had arisen in this regard was the appropriate method by which to appoint a substitute, and whether the substitute needed to come from a particular political group, and she advised that it would be helpful for her to have a clear procedure to follow should the same situation arise in the future.  It was agreed therefore that a report on this be brought to the next meeting of the Committee.

 

RESOLVED:

(a)       that the assessment criteria at Appendix 1 be amended to include a question as to whether, at the time of the alleged breach of the Code of Conduct, the subject member was acting in either a personal or official capacity;

(b)       that a subject member should not be notified of a complaint before assessment;

(c)        that a review hearing should be a re-hearing of the complaint and not a review of the soundness of the decision-making process followed by the Assessment Sub-Committee;

(d)       that no recommendations be made to Council at this stage regarding the composition of the Standards Committee and that the position be reviewed in 12 months time; and

(e)       that a report on the mechanism for appointing district councillor substitutes on the Standards Committee and its Sub-Committees be brought to the next meeting of the Committee.

Supporting documents: