Agenda Item 3
STANDARDS COMMITTEE
Minutes of a meeting of the Standards Committee held on 16 April 2013 in
the Council Chamber, Council Offices, Holt Road, Cromer at 2.00 pm.
Members present:
District
Councillors:
Mrs H Cox
Mr P W Moore (Chairman)
Mr P Williams
Co-opted
Members:
Mr G Allen
Mr M Coates
Mr M Evans
Mr H Gupta
Mr A Nash
Officers in
Attendance:
The Monitoring Officer
The Democratic Services Officer (ED)
Also in
attendance:
The Independent Person
1.
TO RECEIVE APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
Apologies were received from Mr R Barr, Mr A Bullen, Mr B Hannah and Mr J
Savory.
2.
PUBLIC QUESTIONS
None received
.
3.
MINUTES
The Minutes of the Meeting of the Standards Committee Hearing held on 17
December 2012 were approved as a correct record.
4.
ITEMS OF URGENT BUSINESS
There were no items of urgent business.
5.
DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
Standards Committee
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16 April 2013
6.
PARISH AND DISTRICT MEMBERS’ REGISTER OF INTERESTS AND
OFFICER REGISTER OF GIFTS AND HOSPITALITY
The Chairman informed the Committee that the Registers were open to
display and were available for inspection in the Legal Services area.
7.
PARISH COUNCILS AND STANDARDS
The Monitoring Officer introduced this item. He said that the new standards
regime had been operating since July 2012. Almost a year on, it seemed to
be a good time to use the flexibility of the new regime to engage with the
parish councils and find a way to work with them to improve standards of
conduct and reduce the number of vexatious complaints. The Chairman, the
Monitoring Officer and the Independent Person had met to discuss the
content of any training/development programme and they had agreed that a
less formal approach would be more effective. It was now up to the
Committee to decide how and when to move forward with this. He added that
it was difficult to try and predict the impact of any organised training or
development and it might be a question of learning from the initial sessions.
He concluded by saying that such a programme would be an investment for
the Council as they had responsibility for assessing and managing
complaints.
The Chairman invited members to ask questions:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Mr P W Moore asked whether members of the public would be allowed to
attend the sessions and if they could ask questions. The Monitoring
Officer said that it was up to the Parish Council to resolve any issues
around procedure but that it would be beneficial if the public could attend.
Mr G Allen said that it was important to avoid a ‘top down’ approach. It
would be more productive if it could be shown that the Committee wanted
to work with the parish councils. He emphasised the importance of
promoting standards and educating parish councillors about them.
Mr H Gupta commented that the principles of the approach suggested
were very good. He said that it allowed for flexibility and easy
engagement. It might be useful to have a general discussion with some of
the parish councils to try and ascertain what they would like and the
format they would prefer. He was happy to get involved in this.
Mr P W Moore was concerned that if the Committee attended a parish
council meeting and the public were excluded then it could cause
problems. He added that there were so many parish councils in the
district that it was important that the Committee gave consideration to the
best way of doing it. Finally, he wondered whether it would be better to
approach the more ‘challenging’ parish councils first and learn from them.
The Monitoring Officer responded by saying that the Committee should
be invited by the parish councils rather than announce that they were
coming. It was feasible to engage with more than one parish council at a
time. The Independent Person added that there had been a proposal to
run a session of approximately 45 minutes prior to a parish council
meeting. This would allow them to raise any concerns and discuss local
issues freely. He concluded by saying that in South Norfolk they had
invited 8-9 parish councils to attend each session. However, to date, the
response had been poor.
Standards Committee
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16 April 2013
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
Mr M Coates said that he felt the approach shouldn’t be too informal as it
was imperative that people understood that standards was an important
issue.
Mr Gupta acknowledged that it was a big task but the Committee needed
to start somewhere and there must be some direction to the approach
taken to ensure participation.
Mr A Nash said that the Norfolk Association of Parish Councils (NALC)
had hosted parish partnerships to improve their working relationships with
local authorities. The attendance for these sessions had been variable.
He explained that most parish councils were confused as to who to turn
to for guidance and that the best time to offer training or development
was after an election as there were lots of new councillors in post.
Partnership working could be the way forward and he was confident that
people would attend. The Committee could link in with NALC’s work to
ensure that the message got across.
Mr P W Moore agreed. He said that a heavy-handed approach could
back-fire and ultimately reduce the number of people wanting to stand for
election as a parish councillor.
Mr P Williams commented that the most challenging parish councils
would be the least likely to co-operate. He agreed that working in
conjunction with NALC could be beneficial in promoting the programme.
Mr M Evans asked about the process for engaging with parish councils –
when it would start and whether there would be a method for evaluating
its effectiveness.
The Chairman thanked everyone for their input. She said that it was clear that
the general consensus was that something needed to be put in place. The
Independent Person and the Monitoring Officer both had previous experience
of running such programmes and they would now take all the ideas on board
and come up with a suitable scheme. It was important that they started as
soon as possible so there would be something in place in good time for the
next election. She added that the cost implications would need to be taken
into account too.
Mr G Allen said that it might be preferable to take a simple approach by
issuing written guidance initially covering the basic issues and then following
that up with an offer to attend a parish council meeting and answer any
questions. The Independent Person agreed. He said that some of the more
prescriptive parts of the Code of Conduct could be covered by guidance
documents and a follow-up workshop could then focus on engaging them on
improving standards.
Mrs A Shirley said that a different approach might need to be taken for those
parish councils that would welcome help and those that wouldn’t be
interested. The Chairman agreed that it was important to be flexible.
Mr P Williams commented that some of the problems stemmed from weak
clerks or dominant chairmen. Mr P W Moore said that one approach would be
to ‘target’ the chairman of the parish council and inform them that it was their
responsibility to ensure that standards are complied with. Mr M Coates said
that the clerk was also an important person and as they were professional
they were in a good position to give advice to their councillors.
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16 April 2013
Mr P Williams proposed that the issue was moved forward as soon as
possible and that a small group was formed to select an initial group of parish
councils to approach.
AGREED
That the Monitoring Officer, the Independent Person, the Chairman, Mr P W
Moore and Mr P Williams would meet to agree on the approach to take and
which parish councils to contact first.
8.
EXCLUSION OF PRESS AND PUBLIC
The Committee passed the following resolution:
‘That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the press and
public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the
grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as
defined in paragraphs 1 and 3 of Part I of Schedule 12A (as amended) to the
Act’
9.
STANDARDS COMPLAINTS
The Monitoring Officer reported on the complaints received, the type of
breaches alleged and the status of matters. He advised the Committee that
two cases would come to a Hearing – one on 14th May and the other on 4th
June.
Mrs A Shirley asked whether the Committee could be informed of whether a
parish council had acted on the recommendations of the Committee, when a
breach was upheld at a Hearing. The Monitoring Officer said that only one
Hearing had taken place under the new regime and there had been no public
minute of their response. He would contact them and request a formal
response and report back to the Committee.
The meeting concluded at 15.07 pm
___________
Chairman
Standards Committee
4
16 April 2013