To enable the committee to be assured that high standards of conduct continue to be promoted and maintained. 

The monitoring officer presented the report and explained that Mr Richard Stow, Independent Person, and Councillor Richard Gething, nominated HALC representative on the Standards Panel were available to assist the committee with any queries they may have.  

Following a query from a member of the committee, the monitoring officer explained that she had granted two dispensations to one member of the council upon a written request.    The councillor concerned was Councillor TL Bowes and both dispensations were in relation to the committee meetings held in respect of the by-pass.  Councillor Bowes has a Schedule 1 as she has land affected as a result of the identified red route for the by-pass.  Details of the dispensation appeared in the minutes of the relevant meetings.   In both incidents, Councillor Bowes did not attend the meeting but did provide a written statement which represented the views of her ward.   

The independent person expressed concern the monitoring officer was making these decisions as it was allowing a councillor to opt out of the code of conduct which was a serious matter.   In his view the decisions should be a matter for the committee as an agenda item in order to be open and transparent.   

The monitoring officer explained that there were four types of dispensation under the Localism Act 2011.  The audit and governance committee had delegation for two and the monitoring officer had delegation for the following two: 

·         considers that granting the dispensation is in the interests of persons living in the authority’s area,

·         if it is an authority to which Part 1A of the Local Government Act 2000 applies and is operating executive arrangements, considers that without the dispensation each member of the authority’s executive would be prohibited by section 31(4) from participating in any particular business to be transacted by the authority’s executive

The monitoring officer confirmed that no requests for dispensations under the second bulletin point had been received.

A member of the committee outlined the process used for reviewing the constitution and that this issue could be dealt with at that point.   The next review is due to take place in 2020.  

A member of the committee thanked the independent person for his work.

It was requested that the details of the number of complaints against parish councils be re-included in the next report.   The monitoring officer read out the details:

As part of future reports, it was requested that:

·         the data presentation was in charts

·         the dates of monitoring officer resolution and compliance were also added. 

Following a query from a member of the committee, it was noted that standards decision notices were published in two places on the Herefordshire Council website, one under Get Involved for monitoring officer resolution and the other under the Standards Panel Committee page.   It was agreed that there would be a link from the Get Involved section to the committee page.

A member of the committee expressed the following concerns over the standards panel appeal processes contained at appendix 1 and 2:

·         They had been constructed without the same oversight as the rest of the arrangements for dealing with code of conduct complaints.

·         That there was some inherent unfairness which was out of omission and not commission.

·         The hearing of one appeal in public and one in private.

·         That the sampling had been undertaken in private without an attempt to see if it could have been held in public.  

A discussion on the most appropriate way to review the processes took place as one member of the committee considered that it should be in full committee and others through a member-officer working group.   It was agreed that at a small working group would be established to look at the appeals processes.   It was also agreed that the independent person and the HALC nominated representative would also be invited.    The insights of the chairperson for the standards panels held on 16 October would also be useful.  

Following a query from a member of the committee, the monitoring officer explained that she had run two code of conduct sessions with the Society for Local Council Clerks (SLCC) and if invited is happy to discuss the code of conduct with parish or town councils.  

The monitoring officer agreed to look at making code of conduct information more visible on the council’s website and would also send it out to all Herefordshire Council members via ward member update and to all parish councils.  

It was noted that there were very few sanctions available but that publishing details of breaches of the code was the best available at the moment. 

A member of the committee requested that more detail be provided on the Standards Panel decision notice.

It was noted that if there was a failure to comply with the recommendation contained with the decision notice that this would lead to another code of conduct complaint.    It was recognised that as a principal authority, Herefordshire could only make recommendations to a parish council and that compliance would be that the parish council had considered them.   The monitoring officer confirmed that all recommendations are monitored but agreed that this could be more explicit within the arrangements for dealing with standards complaints.    It was agreed that it would be made more explicit that non-compliance would mean a referral to the Standards Panel. 

Following a query from a member of the committee, it was confirmed that the standards panel held on 13 November 2018 which undertook the sampling did consider whether the process had been followed and whether the decision was correct.   It was noted that the standards panel held on 13 November 2018 had made recommendations to the audit and governance committee.  

A member of the committee noted that the group leaders’ protocol had not been signed up to by the current group leaders.   As this protocol sat outside of the standards arrangements and constitution because it was a political document, it would be a matter for group leaders to consider.   It was agreed to refer this to group leaders. 

Following a query from a member of the committee, the monitoring officer confirmed that she would see it as part of her role to offer code of conduct training, irrespective of what was offered by the HALC.  

RESOLVED

That:  

(a) the annual report on code of conduct complaints had been reviewed and a working group established to review the standards panel appeal processes; and

(b) the recommendations from the standards panel advising this committee, following their annual sampling exercise, are adopted.