Agenda item

The Monitoring Officer submits a report detailing the Hearing Panel recommendations following the Standards Hearing Sub-Committee meeting held on 21^st October 2025. The Committee is recommended to consider the findings and the outcomes of the Hearing Panel, and to endorse the Panel’s recommendations, with or without modification.

The Monitoring Officer submitted a report detailing the Hearing Panel recommendations following the Standards Hearing Sub-Committee meeting held on 21st October 2025.

The Monitoring Officer provided an overview of the outcome of the Standards Hearing held on 21^st October 2025. Attention was drawn to the fact that the Hearing panel was the fourth to make findings in 13 years following the set-up of the new Arrangements in 2012. Independent Member involvement in the Hearing panel was highlighted, noting that Independent Members were crucial to the Standards Sub-Committee’s, of which they had voting rights.

Members were informed that they were not being asked to rehear the case or question the findings of the Standards Hearing Sub-Committee, and were instead being asked to ask questions, make recommendations or endorse the findings presented.

Members of the Committee discussed the report in detail, and the following points were raised:

·       Members enquired about point G of section 5 of the report. The Monitoring Officer clarified that the list provided was the full list of available outcomes as written in the Councils Arrangements. While Point G had not been recommended in this case, such an outcome may be appropriate if a Councillor had been afforded equipment or access to a facility that they may have later misused. It was expounded upon that an officer briefing may be considered a facility and should there not be any demonstration to abide by recommendations of the Standard’s Committee such as through a show of remorse or an apology, then the offer for offending Member’s to receive officer briefing’s may be withdrawn.

·       It was noted that the Council’s Press Team compiled the press release and had directly agreed wording for the comment made by the Chair of the Standards Committee with Councillor Barton herself. The Chair highlighted that their comment had been made to ensure a strong stance against disrespect or bullying of staff.

·       Members of the committee drew attention to the concern raised by Councillor ‘X’ in paragraph 4.68 of the report and enquired about whether it was being further investigated. It was noted that no further action had been taken on the comment by the Councillor in question.

·       It was noted that recommendation 5 – that the findings of the panel be reported to Full Council, had been made with intent to capture the outcome of the Hearing Panel. Following further discussion and consideration, it was recommended that a proposal for a motion of censure be debated and voted on.

The Chair moved that the Committee endorse the recommendations as laid out in the report. This was seconded by Councillor Bajaj and upon being put to the vote, the motion was CARRIED.

Members expressed concern on how to proceed if Councillor Kitterick failed to undertake the offer of additional training. The Monitoring Officer noted that nothing would be gained by taking up the case again in such an event, and that there is no expressed mechanism for dealing with such default by a Member. Further amendments to the Standards Arrangements as provided to the Committee in early 2025 would allow for the failure to comply with informal outcomes could result in the original complaint being re-opened or taken as a fresh complaint, but this did not apply to formal outcomes. It remained the case that, under the current state of law, censure was of itself the most powerful outcome and deterrent.

It was noted that the Government’s Consultation on the future of the Standards Regime did consider matters such as tougher sanctions as well as rights of appeal to a national body. However, no appeal process was currently available.

AGREED:

That the Standards Committee endorse the recommendations laid out in the report.