Agenda

The constitution provides that the Committee shall elect its own Chairman, with the intention that this shall be one of the appointed independent members on annual rotation.

To approve as an accurate record, and the Chairman to sign, the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 24 March 2010.

The Mayor (Councillor Alford) and Michael Cogher, Assistant Director ( Legal and Democratic Services) have sent their apologies.

If a Councillor has any prejudicial or personal interest in a particular report he/she should declare the existence and nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of the item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a prejudicial interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter. The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken, unless a dispensation has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

Where members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance, then the Councillor with a prejudicial interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration, unless the disability has been removed by the Standards Committee.

Attached is the Annual Monitoring Return submitted in March 2010.  As Members will know, there were 2 local complaint cases which arose towards the end of the period. In both cases, they resulted in no further action.  At the time of the submission of the return the cases had not been completed as there was still an opportunity for the complainant in each case to ask for a review.

Report attached

Last year it was agreed that that an Annual Report on this issue should be presented to the Standards Committee.  It was agreed that similar reports  be presented annually to the Committee. A copy of this year’s report is attached.

Attached is a suggested Work Programme for the current Municipal year.