Agenda item

Members of the Committee are invited to discuss the findings on the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) - Review into Local Government Ethical Standards and in light of that to consider the Council’s Code of Conduct and Arrangements.

Link to full report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-government-ethical-standards

Members of the Committee received a summary of the findings, recommendations and best practice suggestions from the Committee of Standards in Public Life (CSPL) – Review into Local Government Ethical Standards.

The Monitoring Officer introduced the item and explained the background leading to the review by CSPL. It was noted that the CSPL report contained a list of recommendations for the Government but the government position on adopting any of the recommendations was not yet known and some of the recommendations would require primary legislation to be put in place.

Attention was drawn to several comments in the report:

·         there was a lack of consistency between local authorities Codes of Conduct;

·         the scope of the Code of Conduct should be widened with a rebuttable presumption that any act by a councillor is in their official capacity;

·         current arrangements for declaring and managing interests were unclear and requirements should be updated to include categories of non-pecuniary interests;

It was noted that other key recommendations related to topics such as a clear register of gifts, tighter rules around when members should be barred from undertaking business of the authority when they have a specific interest and a requirement for councils to report annually on the number of complaints received.

Members of the Committee noted that social media continued to be an area where ethical stance was tested regularly and many of the complaints rejected in recent years were matters related to councillor’s social media postings and it was likely there would be national guidance on that before long.

The Monitoring Officer advised there was a list of Best Practice recommendations directed to local authorities and it was clear that this authority already applied a number of those practices.

Members of the Committee considered the Best Practice recommendations in conjunction with the council’s own Code of Conduct and Arrangements:

Best Practice 1: There was a discussion around defining conduct that amounted to harassment and bullying. The Monitoring Officer advised that it had been made clear through case law that the political arena was a harsh one and it was clear the courts would tolerate a more robust debate and challenge than might exist in normal life. Members felt there had to be an objective ability to measure to be able to make a finding.

The Monitoring Officer advised that there were prohibitions on harassment and bullying within the Code of Conduct but there was no definition with examples. The Monitoring Officer agreed to explore better definitions of bullying/harassment and examples to include in the code on understanding those examples would not confine or exclude other behaviour that may amount to bullying/harassment.

Best Practice 2: Leicester’s Code of Conduct did not include provisions requiring councillors to comply with any formal standards investigation. There had been no difficulty experienced locally with compliance and all councillors had been responsive. It was also not a dominant feature of complaints received that there were malicious allegations councillor on councillor. However, there was provision through appendices to the Code of Conduct to deal with potential councillor’s non-compliance.

Best Practice 3: The Code of Conduct was reviewed each year. Although the views of the public were not sought, this was a large local authority and the Standards Committee had been deliberately set up with a majority of independent members and it was felt that aspect was therefore addressed.

It was noted that the Code of Conduct and arrangements had evolved following discussions with the inclusion of appendices over time.

Best Practice 4: The authority’s code of conduct was readily accessible to all in several places and on the council’s website.

Best Practice 5: There was a gifts and hospitality section within the code of conduct that required councillors within 28 days to notify details of gifts/hospitality, however this was a councillor responsibility and obligation was on councillors to notify changes.

Best Practice 6: The authority had a public interest test and the Code of Conduct included a definition of Other Disclosable Interest’s.

Best Practice 7: The authority had access to two independent persons.

Best Practice 8: The Monitoring Officer consulted the independent persons on whether to undertake a formal investigation on allegations, the only exception to this was when a complaint was very vague, in which case the complainant is asked to provide more detail. Very often they do not write back.

Best Practice 9: Decision notices were published to the council’s website together with an anonymised version of investigative reports.

Best Practice 10: Guidance on complaints was easily accessible on the council’s website and included options to complete an online form, write to the Monitoring Officer or email to a dedicated email address.

Best Practices 11 and 12 related to Parish Council’s so not applicable.

Best Practice 13: This authority had the advantage of a Deputy Monitoring Officer who could undertake investigations if there was a conflict of interest.

Best Practice 14: This related to governance arrangements for outside bodies and Members were assured that outside bodies had their own codes of conduct.

Best Practice 15: The Monitoring Officer confirmed there were good levels of discussion and co-operation between senior officers and the group whip.

It was queried what recourse councillors had if members of the public acted inappropriately towards them and the Monitoring Officer explained that the standards regime did not allow the authority to deal with that, however the Monitoring Officer could give advice to councillors about handling for example vexatious public.

It was noted that while there were reminders about conduct at meetings it did not seem to be within the Code of Conduct and there may be merit in importing that.

RESOLVED:

1.    that the Monitoring Officer should explore better definitions of bullying/harassment and examples to include in the code of conduct;

2.    that the Monitoring Officer consider including “conduct at meetings” within the Code of Conduct;

3.    that the Monitoring Officer should incorporate the best practices discussed into the Code of Conduct or lay out reasons against that if applicable and bring a report to the next meeting of the Standards Committee.