Contact: Jeff Pattison, ext 7321

1 Summary

1.1 This report gives an update of complaints about County Councillors' conduct referred to the Standards Board for England since this was last done to the Committee at its meeting on 26 October 2004.

2 Current position

2.1 Since the last report updating members on complaints referred to the Standards Board at its meeting on 26 October 2004 there have been no case summaries of completed investigations into allegations of misconduct published by the Standards Board for England in respect of County Council members.

2.2 However, since that time allegations of misconduct have been made and the current position is that they have either not been proceeded with by the Standards Board or they are the subject of current investigations. As members will recollect prior to any allegation of misconduct being investigated by the Standards Board they undertake a process of gate keeping, the purpose of which is to determine at the outset whether allegations require to be formally investigated by an Ethical Standards Officer from the Standards Board. At the last Standards Board conference in Birmingham on 5 and 6 September 2005, it was said that currently approximately 75% of allegations are not proceeded with to investigation.

2.3 There have been six cases which have been referred to the Standards Board for England but which they have decided should not be investigated.

2.4 In addition to this there is one allegation which has been referred to the Standards Board and which is currently referred to an Ethical Standards Officer for investigation.

2.5 As members will be aware this complaint needs to be treated in a confidential manner but obviously should it result in a finding that a failure to comply where a Code of Conduct has occurred then the circumstances of that will be referred to the Standards Committee. This could result in the allegations being referred for hearing and determination by the Standards Committee or passed to the Standards Committee for their information once the matter has been determined by the Standards Board and/or the Adjudication Panel for England.

2.6 There is one further case which was referred to an Ethical Standards Officer for investigation and which has now been concluded. That was an allegation that Cllr Davies-Dear had failed to comply with the Code of Conduct by disclosing confidential information. The Ethical Standards Officer has determined that Cllr Davies-Dear did fail to comply with the Code of Conduct, but that in the circumstances no further action needs to be taken. A copy of the information about this case, which has been placed on the Standards Board website is attached.

2.7 The Committee is invited to consider what, if any, further action (particularly of a general training nature) is required.

3 Recommendation

For the Committee to note the present position regarding allegations of misconduct made against Hampshire County Council members and to consider what further training and information should be made available to members as a result of the adverse finding made by the Standards Board against Cllr Davies-Dear.

Section 100D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose the facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

N.B. The list excludes:

1. Published works.


2. Documents that disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

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