Agenda item

Purpose: To consider amalgamating the Governance and Audit and Standards Committees.

The Committee considered a report (Agenda Item 7) which proposed to amalgamate the Governance and Audit Committee with the Standards Committee to create a new Governance and Ethics Committee.

The workload of the Standards Committee had declined over the preceding few years. Officers had therefore been asked to look into merging the Governance and Audit and Standards Committees of the Council in order to streamline governance arrangements.

The Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2015  had recently been enacted which required the Council to make changes to the Constitution to include certain provisions relating to the potential dismissal or disciplining of the Head of Paid Service, Monitoring Officer or S151 Officer. As part of the procedural changes required a panel would need to be set up to advise on matters relating to the dismissal of these Officers. The Act required at least two Independent Persons who had been appointed under section 28(7) of the Localism Act 2011 to be appointed to the panel. The roles of the Independent Persons therefore needed to be updated.

It was proposed that:

·         The two Committees would be merged to form a Governance and Ethics Committee;

·         A revised set of terms of reference of the Governance and Ethics Committee should be adopted;

·         The membership of the revised Governance and Ethics Committee would comprise ten members (eight District Councillors appointed on a proportional basis and two co-opted  non-voting Parish/Town Councillors);

·         The structure of agendas would be arranged so as to ensure that the Parish Councillors would only need to attend the Standards element of the meeting;

·         The Advisory Panel and Independent Persons would be retained;

·         The role of the Independent Persons would be updated to include the requirements set out in The Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2015;

·         Authority would be delegated to the Monitoring Officer to amend all relevant parts of the Constitution to reflect the new governance structure;

·         Authority would be delegated to the Head of Strategic Support to amend the timetable of meetings for 2015/16.

Moira Fraser explained that the recent Peer Review had highlighted that the authority was somewhat bureaucratic in nature. During the previous Financial Year Strategic Support had administered in excess of 330 meetings. This did not take into account the myriad of other meetings that Members were expected to attend including Outside Bodies, Group Meetings, Parish Council meetings, meetings with Officers and those administered by other teams. Officers had therefore been seeking opportunities to streamline the number of meetings and this seemed a logical choice. The skills required by the Members of the two Committees were similar and their remit already overlapped in certain areas. A number of other authorities had already amalgamated the two functions.

During 2014/15 the Standards Committee met four times, two of these meetings were held virtually. During the past three years 34 complaints about potential breaches of the Code of Conduct were received. Since the implementation of the revised Standards arrangements around 80% of these complaints were dealt with by the Independent Person and the Monitoring Officer at the Initial Assessment stage. This meant that a maximum of five complaints might result in a full Hearing.

It was important to note that the current Standards Committee was constituted on a proportional basis. This would also be true of the proposed Governance and Ethics Committee. Officers therefore proposed the retention of the Advisory Panel to ensure that the perception of political neutrality was retained.

The Governance and Ethics agenda would be structured into two parts so that the Parish Councillors would not have to stay for the rest of the debate if they did not want to. They would be appointed in a non-voting capacity as they were on the Standards Committee.

In the event that a hearing was required a special meeting would be convened to conduct this item of business.

Although this proposal will only generate a small saving both in terms of money and meetings the motivation is to improve the efficiency of the Councils democratic process and combining these two committees would be a good starting point.

Members expressed concern at the proposal to combine both Committees and felt they needed more time to consider the implications of this.  It was agreed that the proposal to combine the two committees should be deferred to the next meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee with the exception of the need to receive Council approval in May to expand the roles of the two Independent Persons in accordance with the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2015.

RESOLVED that:

(1)       the proposal to combine the Governance and Audit Committee and Standards Committee be deferred and discussed further at the next meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee;

(2)       Council be requested to approve the extension of the roles of the two Independent Persons to cover the requirements of the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 in relation to any potential dismissal or disciplining of the Head of Paid Service, Monitoring Officer and Section 151 Officer.