Agenda item

Purpose: To consider any changes to the way Members need to deal with offers of Gifts and Hospitality and the procedure for determining complaints made under the Standards Regime.

The Committee considered a report (Agenda Item 5) concerning any changes to the way Members needed to deal with offers of Gifts and Hospitality and the procedure for determining complaints made under the Standards Regime.

David Holling explained that West Berkshire Council’s Code of Conduct for Councillors was adopted by Full Council at its meeting on 10th May 2012 and came into effect from 1st July 2012. A scheduled review of the Code of Conduct and the underpinning processes was undertaken and the ensuing amendments were adopted at the December 2013 Council meeting.

It was therefore now necessary to re-write Appendix E (Procedure for Local Determination of Allegations) to reflect the revised governance arrangements and procedures for dealing with complaints made against district, town and parish councillors.

Members commended the revised arrangements. It was noted that to date no complaints had progressed to a hearing stage and the procedures laid out had not yet been tested. It might therefore be necessary to revisit the procedure once more complaints had been received.

The Monitoring Officer also explained that following an internal audit of the management of the Constitution in 2010 it was noted that one of the responsibilities of the Finance and Governance Group was to have ownership of the Council's Constitution.  A timetable was therefore established for the Finance and Governance Group to review individual sections of the Constitution.  In line with this timetable the Standards Committee were asked to consider proposed amendments to Appendix D (Gifts and Hospitality) to Part 13 (Codes and Protocols) of the Constitution.

The existing protocol for dealing with gifts and hospitality by Members did neither accord with legislative changes nor current nor best practice and it had therefore also been substantially re-written.

Members discussed whether or not to retain the £25.00 limit for gifts and hospitality. They noted the comments from Tony Renouf, a member of the Advisory Panel, that consideration should be given to removing the limit and instead requiring all gifts and hospitality to be declared. Members felt that the £25.00 limit was a long held custom and practice and that Members were familiar with this delineation and therefore agreed that it should be retained.

The Committee noted the comments from the two Independent Members and Councillor Renouf in relation to the rule (rule 1 page 19) that required Member to seek authorisation from the Monitoring Officer prior to accepting any gifts and hospitality. They agreed that this would be impractical in relation to gifts and therefore suggested that the wording be amended so that it only applied to hospitality.

The Committee also asked that the second bullet point under the heading ‘gifts which are more likely to be considered acceptable’ (page 23) be extended to include ‘training’ and ‘working meetings’.

Councillor Adrian Edwards noted that there was no reference to gifts or hospitality received by Councillor’s spouses/ partners. David Holling noted that the Localism Act 2011 required such disclosures to be made in accordance with regulations made under the act. It was therefore agreed that reference would be , made to this in the introduction to the revised Code.

David Holling explained that both Appendices would be considered by the Governance and Audit Committee (10 February 2014) and then full Council on the 04 March 2014.

RESOLVED that the amended Appendices be referred to the 10 February 2014 Governance and Audit Committee for consideration prior to adoption at the 04 March 2014 Council meeting.