REPORT OF THE

STANDARDS COMMITTEE

PART II

LOCAL INVESTIGATION AND DETERMINATION OF MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST COUNCILLORS

1. The Committee has considered a consultation paper received from the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR) which sets out proposals for the local investigation and determination of misconduct allegations against Members. A two-tier approach is envisaged whereby less serious allegations would be considered and dealt with locally and would be investigated by the Council's Monitoring Officer; whilst the remainder of complaints will be handled by the Standards Board for England.

2. The Consultation Paper covers the procedures to be followed when someone considers that a Councillor has breached the Code of Conduct, as adopted by the County Council at its meeting on 30 March 2002. The Committee considers that one principle of fairness that should apply in such cases is that the Member complained of should be informed of the allegation at the soonest possible opportunity, in the interests of natural justice. However, the Consultation Paper does not clearly provide for this, but indicates that there may be circumstances in which the Member should not be informed about the complaint until a later date. This is an important issue which should have been included within the Consultation Paper, and should be clearly provided for in future Regulations.

3. The Consultation Paper also proposed that, if a complaint is submitted directly to the Authority, there should be a duty for this to be referred to the Authority's Standards Committee for onward transmission to the Standards Board for England. If this duty is placed on the Standards Committee, then the cycle of meetings could mean delay in the referral of the complaint to the Standards Board for England by several months. The Committee considers, therefore, that the Regulations should contain a provision that any complaint received by the Council should be referred to the Standards Board for England within a maximum period of 28 days. If necessary a special meeting of the Standards Committee would be called in order for the complaint to be considered prior to it being referred onwards to the Standards Board. Alternatively it might be the intention that complaints should automatically be referred to the Standards Board for England; in any event clarification is required.

4. The Monitoring Officer will have an important role in investigating complaints and advising Members, but there is no proposal to give the Monitoring Officer similar powers to those enjoyed by the Standards Board's Ethical Standards Officers in investigating complaints. The Committee considers that Monitoring Officers should have powers to compel any person to provide them with information, documentation or explanation in order to enable him or her to investigate complaints fully and fairly. The Committee is convinced that this aspect should be reviewed by the Government so that there is parity between Monitoring Officers and Ethical Standards Officers.

5. The Committee is convinced that there are serious defects in the proposals whereby complaints are determined by the Standards Committee. The proposal is that, when investigating complaints, the Standards Committee should normally include not more than 5 Members and should be chaired by an independent member who would also be responsible for selecting the other 4 Members. The Committee sees no reason why the Standards Committee itself, comprising 8 Members, should be unable to discharge this important function effectively and fairly. They have no objection to an Independent Member acting as Chairman when the Committee is discharging this function.

6. The Government proposed that Standards Committees should have no power to make any award of costs or expenses arising from any of their proceedings. The Committee considers that the Government should be requested to bring forward Regulations which would expressly allow Councils to indemnify Members in circumstances where the Member complained of has acted in good faith and without negligence in respect of a matter which related to an act or omission of the Council itself. It follows that such indemnification would not apply where complaints arose from a Member's behaviour in a private capacity.

7. The Committee has therefore expressed strong support for the response to the DTLR summarised above, and has reasserted the importance which it attaches to the Standards Committee itself being fully responsible for the investigation of complaints against elected Members.

P.A. PIERCE

Chairman

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