Agenda and minutes

To approve the record of the meeting held on 28 April 2014.

The record of the meeting held on 28 April 2014 was agreed and signed by the Chairman as correct. 

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Mrs Diane Chambers and Adrian Gulvin. 

The Chairman will announce any late items which do not appear on the main agenda but which he/she has agreed should be considered by reason of special circumstances to be specified in the report. 

There were none. 

A member need only disclose at any meeting the existence of a disclosable pecuniary interest (DPI) in a matter to be considered at that meeting if that DPI has not been entered on the disclosable pecuniary interests register maintained by the Monitoring Officer.

A member disclosing a DPI at a meeting must thereafter notify the Monitoring Officer in writing of that interest within 28 days from the date of disclosure at the meeting.

A member may not participate in a discussion of or vote on any matter in which he or she has a DPI (both those already registered and those disclosed at the meeting) and must withdraw from the room during such discussion/vote.

Members may choose to voluntarily disclose a DPI at a meeting even if it is registered on the council’s register of disclosable pecuniary interests but there is no legal requirement to do so.

Members should also ensure they disclose any other interests which may give rise to a conflict under the council’s code of conduct.

In line with the training provided to members by the Monitoring Officer members will also need to consider bias and pre-determination in certain circumstances and whether they have a conflict of interest or should otherwise leave the room for Code reasons. 

Disclosable pecuniary interests

There were none.

Other interests

There were none.

This is the Monitoring Officer’s Annual Report for the period 27 July 2013 to 26 July 2014. This report gives an update on Member conduct issues, and the work of the Councillor Conduct Committee and the Monitoring Officer.

Discussion:

The Monitoring Officer introduced his annual report for 2013/14.  The report demonstrated that there had been a slight rise in the number of complaints compared with the previous year but this remained a huge reduction on the number received in 2011/12, under the previous standards regime. The Monitoring Officer also reported that, in accordance with the Council’s procedure, he had dealt with a further seven potential complaints which had been resolved informally.

A Member asked the Monitoring Officer about advice given to Members regarding declarations of other interests as he felt there was some inconsistency amongst Members declaring interests at full Council meetings.  The Monitoring Officer explained that he had advised Members to always declare other potential interests, that were not Disclosable Pecuniary Interests, at meetings to safeguard against any potential breach of the Code of Conduct.  He added that there were a wide variety of items reported to full Council which impact on different Councillors at different times and that he would reiterate his advice on declarations of interests at the next annual refresher training to Members.

Decision:

The committee noted the report.

This report considers the current set of criteria for use in considering complaints against Members and summarises the process for receiving and resolving or investigating complaints about the conduct of a Councillor.

Discussion:

The Monitoring Officer reported to the committee some suggested changes to the procedure for dealing with Councillor conduct complaints, following some suggested changes from the Independent Person.  These changes were demonstrated as tracked changes appended to the report, however, the Monitoring Officer informed the committee that there was an error on page 23 of the agenda which detailed the flowchart of the process. Number 3 on the flowchart should have demonstrated the removal of the words “falls within”.

Members then raised some points and suggestions which included: -

·        Whether it was necessary to name the Independent Person in the procedure.

·        If a complaint is made more than six months after the event due to the complainant only recently becoming aware of the event itself it was felt that the procedure was unclear whether this would be considered within the deadline.

The Monitoring Officer agreed that the Independent Person’s name was not required in the procedure, in order to improve the sustainability of the procedure and keep it current.  With regard to the six month deadline, he undertook to provide some wording to make it clear that in such circumstances, a complaint could be considered to be within time, provided the complainant brought it forward as soon as the event the complaint was about came to light.

Decision:

The committee noted the report and agreed the changes, as detailed within the report, subject to the comments above being reflected.