To approve changes to the constitution as recommended by Audit and Governance Committee.

Council considered a report containing proposed changes to the constitution following the review undertaken by a member working group. Three proposed amendments were received prior to the meeting from the following members; Councillor NE Shaw, Councillor AJW Powers and Councillor EPJ Harvey. The proposed amendments were published as a supplement in advance of the meeting.

Councillor PD Newman OBE moved the report and explained that following the introduction of the current constitution in May 2017 a cross-party working group, of the audit and governance committee, had been established to undertake an overview of the constitution and make recommendations. The recommendations agreed by the working group were presented to the audit and governance committee in May 2018 and were approved in a split vote. Councillor J Stone seconded the report and its recommendations.

Council discussed the recommendations contained in the report and made the following points:

·         The working group were thanked for their work on the constitution and it was positive that a change to the terms of reference of the scrutiny committees now included the ability to examine relevant budget and performance framework items;

·         The new right of appeal for members against code of conduct judgements was welcomed; and

·         There was concern that none of the proposed changes addressed issues of ‘silo working’, which had been identified as an issue in the recent peer review.

Amendment 1

Councillor NE Shaw introduced his amendment and informed Council of the addition of the word upheld to his amendment which had been omitted in error from the published supplement. The amendment proposed the naming of councillors, in the annual code of conduct report to the audit and governance committee, against whom complaints had been upheld. Councillor Shaw explained that code of conduct complaints were mostly raised against parish councillors and only a small proportion were upheld. The proposal would only affect a small number of councillors and ensured that the electorate were aware when their local members were found to be in breach of the code of conduct. It was proposed that parish councils should be consulted on any change in future constitution reviews.

Councillor JG Lester seconded the amendment.

Council made the points below in the debate which followed:

·         Support was expressed for the amendment which would assist the audit and governance committee to complete its annual review of complaints and allow for councillors to be held to account by the electorate.

·         There was concern that publishing the names of councillors in an annual report may not serve the public interest if breaches of the code were not known at times of election; and

·         The amendment sought to ensure that the Council was open and transparent.

The amendment was put to the vote and approved unanimously.

RESOLVED: That an amendment to section 3.5.14 (f) of the constitution is agreed as follows; ‘To annually review overall figures and trends from code of conduct complaints which will include number of upheld complaints by reference to individual councillors within unitary, town and parish councils.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9

To consider the suggested amendments to the council’s constitution proposed by the constitution review working group for recommendation to Council.

The chairman of the committee presented the report and highlighted that at the final meeting, the members of the working group had agreed the proposed changes without any dissenting voices.

A member of the working group and committee noted that they had not been able to be present at the meeting and they would not have agreed with some of the proposed amendments to the constitution.    The concerns raised were:

·         Elected members should declare membership of any body or organisation listed in schedule 2 rather than being a position of management or control of those organisations.     The current wording was not understood by members of the public and did not cover how “closed” organisations operated.  Elected members should be transparent on this point.

·         The continuing absence of the publication of monitoring officer resolutions when members were in breach of the code of conduct.   It was confirmed that group leaders were informed as a matter of practice where unitary councillors were in breach of the code of conduct but that this was not specified in the arrangements for dealing with code of conduct complaints.     It was agreed that this would be clarified under the monitoring officer resolutions section of the arrangements document. 

At the request of a member of the committee, it was agreed that:

·         in relation to the appointment of a director of public health, there was cross-referencing at 4.9.19 to make it clear that the shortlisting for this post was joint with the secretary of state. 

·         A sentence deletion be undone on page 1 of the arrangements for dealing with standards complaints in relation to the process being confidential.  

A member of the committee proposed an amendment on the councillors’ code of conduct (Part 5, Section 2) at paragraph 5.2.14, Schedule 2 Interests (first box) so that it reads “any body of which the member is a member (this does not include where the member is appointed or nominated by council)”:     The chairman made it clear that he would oppose any proposal which would substantively change the agreed recommendations of the cross party working group and requested a vote.

A vote was conducted as follows:

In favour of the amendment: 2

Against the amendment:         3 (chairman’s casting vote was used)

Following a query from a member of the committee, it was confirmed that where there were recommended actions in relation to monitoring officer resolutions, this would form part of the annual report on code of conduct complaints.   

A member of the committee proposed an amendment so that elected Members names were published if they were found to be in breach of the code of conduct under monitoring officer resolution.

A vote was conducted as follows:

In favour of the amendment: 2

Against the amendment:         3 (chairman’s casting vote was used)

A named vote was conducted in relation to each recommendation in the report:

a)        having regard to the work undertaken by the constitution working group, the revised constitution as set out at appendices 2 to 9, be recommended to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 295