Agenda and draft minutes

The Committee is asked to note the appointment of the following Independent Persons as Co-opted Members:

·       His Honor John Rylance

·       Dr Tom Babbedge

·       Ms Dilina Ostborn

The Committee noted the appointment of His Honour John Rylance, Dr Tom Babbedge and Dilina Ostborn as Co-Opted Members of the Committee.

Members of the Committee introduced themselves and gave a brief description of their roles in the Council.

His Honour John Rylance was elected as the Chair of the Standards Committee.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Rory Vaughan.

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that 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 disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant 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.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

The terms of reference for the Standards Committee is presented for information and noting.

The Terms of reference were noted.

This report presents the new Local Government Association Model Code of Conduct for Members and requests that the Standards Committee approve that the Code of Conduct be recommended to Full Council for adoption.

In 2019, the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) produced a report on “Local Government Ethical Standards”. The report made a series of recommendations to ensure that the governance of local authorities was robust and took account of learning across the sector.  The production of an updated model Code of Conduct by the Local Government Association (LGA) was one of the recommendations in the report.  The report stated that a model Code of Conduct would create consistency across England and reflect the common expectations of the public regardless of geography or tier of local government.

In response to the report, the LGA produced a model Code.  Members of the committee were consulted on three drafts of the Code (twice in 2020 and in January 2021). The LGA draft code has considered comments from Councillors, officers, councils, Independent members, and Members of the public from across the Country.  

Whilst there is a statutory requirement for every authority to adopt a code of conduct, the LGA’s model Code is a template and authorities can choose to adopt it either in whole, with amendments considering local circumstances, or continue with the current Code.

The Chair, Hon John Rylance, strongly recommended against recommending to Full Council to adopting the Code in its current form as in his view the Code was defective for three main reasons: -

·       The concept was a mess - The 24 pages long Code is accompanied by a 60-page guidance.  The Guidance is not consistent with the Code.  The potential for divergence between the code and the guidance is too far.  The Code makes no reference to the guidance which could lead to confusion.  There must be one document which covers the content of the Code and guidance making it easy for a member of public or Member to refer to.

·       Drafting error – The Code has been badly drafted leading to misinterpretations.

·       No Sanctions – There are no effective means of determining a breach nor any power to sanction erring Members

Dilina Ostborn noted the new Code is a great improvement on the current one.  She observed that there is little room for including sanctions as it stands.

In response to a couple of questions from Members, the meeting was informed that the LGA was commissioned to draft the guidance to support the Code.  There had been no comments from the Government on the Committee on Standards in Public Life report published in 2019 until recently when the Minister for Levelling Up Communities, Kemi Badenoch, said she was actively considering the recommendations set out in the Committee’s report and will respond “shortly”.  The CSPL’s recommendations included that local authorities should be given the power to suspend councillors without allowances for up to six months for breaches of the code of conduct.  The big question for the Government to address is whether it wants to legislate for sanctions.  The Council could wait until the Government responds to the Committee’s report before it adopts the new Code.

Regarding the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.