Agenda item

Purpose: To present the Annual Governance and Ethics Committee report to Full Council.

The Committee considered the Annual Report (Agenda Item 5) of the Governance and Ethics Committee.

David Holling in introducing the report noted that:

·                    There had been a significant increase in the number of complaints received in 2015/16. Twenty six complaints were received in total compared to nine in 2014/15. Sixteen of these complaints pertained to District Councillors and ten to Parish or Town Councillors. However, as a large number of these complaints pertained to events that transpired at an Area and subsequent District Planning Committee and were dealt with expediently he was not overly concerned.

·                    Following the Initial Assessment of these complaints no further action was taken on twenty two of them, a local resolution was sought in two cases, one was withdrawn and one was investigated.

·                    Two investigations were concluded in 2015/16 (one pertained to a case from 2014/15) and the cost of these external investigations amounted to £12,789.00. The cost of these external investigations and a lack of internal resources could lead to a budget pressure should the trend continue.

·                    Both investigations pertained to Parish Councillors and it was not possible to recover these costs from the authorities concerned. 

·                    All new Members and a significant number of new Parish and Town Councillors had attended Code of Conduct training which was encouraging.

·                    The Independent Persons continued to fulfil a very useful function as regards the ethical framework and had contributed a good deal of outside knowledge and common sense to the decision making process and he thanked them for their input.

Councillor Anthony Pick noted that the two complaints that had been investigated had arisen due to personal differences between parish councillors. He therefore asked that every effort be made to ensure that parish councillors resolved their conflicts without resorting to the ‘Standards regime’. Dealing with these complaints used up valuable Councillor time. David Holling reassured him that he spent a lot of time speaking with parishes to try and resolve their issues without resorting to the complaints procedure. Councillor Webb acknowledged Councillor Pick’s point but noted that where complaints were submitted due process had to be followed.

Councillor Lee Dillon noted that of the three dispensations considered by the Governance and Ethics Committee two were considered via virtual meetings and one at a special meeting. He felt that it was likely that greater consistency would arise if all meetings were held in situ. It was agreed that Officers would remind Members of the need to apply for a dispensation in December 2016 and that if at all possible all the dispensations would be discussed at the February 2017 Committee meeting. If necessary a special meeting would be held to take cognisance of the fact that Members might not be aware of the need for a dispensation until the Executive paperwork was published.

Councillor Bridgman requested that the following typographical errors be corrected:

·                     Page 37 item 13 – remove the stray bracket

·                     Page 38 item 21 should refer to (15) to (20) and not (15) to (21)

·                     Page 44, paragraph 11.2 ensure the wording reflected the current wording in the Constitution.

Councillor Rick Jones noted that a number of the complaints pertaining to parish councils were based on a breakdown in relationships and he requested that this issue be focussed on in future training sessions for the parish councillors.

RESOLVED that:

A recommendation be made to Council that the report be noted and circulated to all Parish and Town Councillors in the District for information subject to the inclusion of the amendments requested at this meeting.