Agenda and minutes

Councillor Jon Collins – other Council business

Councillor Neghat Khan – other Council business

Councillor Jane Urquhart – work commitments

None

Last meeting held on 29 June 2017 (for confirmation)

The minutes of the meeting held on 29 June 2017 were agreed as a correct record and were signed by the Chair.

Report of the Monitoring Officer

Malcolm Townroe, Director of Legal and Governance and Monitoring Officer presented his report to the committee and responded to Councillors’ questions highlighting the following points:

a)  The Hearings Sub-Committee would be responsible for hearing complaints that a Councillor or Co-opted member of a Committee had breached the Code of Conduct;

b)  As a formal committee within the Council’s governance structure the Hearings Sub-Committee will need to be politically balanced. Balance applies to the membership of the Committee rather than the Councillors in attendance at meetings;

c)  It is anticipated that the members of the Sub-Committee will be selected from the membership of the Standards Committee as and when complaints cases arise. This will allow for flexibility in the membership of the Sub-Committee and will help to ensure that cases are heard by Councillors with no prejudicial prior involvement in the case;

d)  All political groups are able to appoint substitute members to the Standards Hearings Sub-Committee provided the same substitute member sits on the Sub-Committee for the duration of the hearing;

e)  The Standards Committee and the Hearings Sub-Committee are both subject to access to information regulations and legislation and if any information is to be considered it would need to be exempted under Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972.

RESOLVED to:

(1)  Approve the establishment of a Standards Hearings Sub-Committee;

(2)  Agree the Terms of Reference for the Sub-Committee as outlined in the Appendix to the Monitoring Officer’s report;

(3)  Note that the Constitutional Amendment required by the establishment of the Sub-Committee will be taken to Council for approval in November;

(4)  Note that appointments will be made to the Hearings Sub-Committee on an ad-hoc basis via the in-year changes procedure.

Report of the Monitoring Officer

Malcolm Townroe, Director of Legal and Governance and Monitoring Officer presented his report to the committee and responded to Councillors’ questions highlighting the following points:

a)  Four complaints were investigated by the previous Monitoring Officer between September 2016 and August 2017. All were dealt with informally following discussions with the complainant, the subject of the complaint and any relevant witnesses;

b)  All complaints are dealt with on their own merits as individual cases.

RESOLVED to note the information in the monitoring report.