Agenda and minutes

Councillor Barry Birch was elected as Chairman of the Committee for the 2016/17 municipal year.

Councillor Marge Anderton was elected as Vice-Chairman of the Committee for the 2016/17 municipal year.

In the absence of Cllr B Birch, she chaired the remainder of the meeting.

Members will declare any pecuniary or significant other interests they have in relation to the items on this agenda.

None.

Confirmation of the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 17 March, 2016.

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 17 March 2016 be confirmed as a correct record.

Schedule prepared by the Monitoring Officer.

The Monitoring Officer will report on issues arising from the complaints listed.

The Monitoring Officer submitted a report on complaints of alleged breaches of the Council’s Code of Conduct which were currently being processed or had been completed since the last report to the Standards Committee.  Ms Hadgraft said that brief details of each of the complaints were included in the schedule attached as an Appendix to the report.  She provided further information to the Committee at the meeting, as follows:

Schedule items 1-4.  Complaint Refs: 201507(i), 2015/07(ii), 2016/02 and 2016/03.

These complaints had all been previously reported to the Committee and were on-going cases. The previous Monitoring Officer had determined that an independent mediator would be appointed to seek a resolution on complaint Ref: 2016/03.  This mediation had very recently taken place and, she was happy to report that she had been advised by the company carrying out the mediation that it appeared to have been successful, with both the parties involved signing up to a written agreement. 

At the last Standards Committee meeting a question had been raised with regards to the payment for this service and whether the costs of the mediation should be met by Wyre Council or passed onto the appropriate parish/town council.  She had sought a legal opinion on this matter and had been advised that, whilst Wyre could ask the parish/town council concerned to pay or make a contribution to the cost, it would not be possible to enforce payment.  Ms Hadgraft agreed, in response to questions, to send information on the costs of the mediation process to members of the Committee.

Schedule item 5.  Complaint Ref: 2016/04

The previous Monitoring Officer had reported to the last Standards Committee meeting that legal advice had been received that the member who was the subject of this complaint had not been acting in their capacity as a Councillor when the alleged offence had taken place and, the Code of Conduct did not therefore apply. From a council perspective, nothing further would be done with this complaint. 

Schedule item 6.  Complaint Ref:  2016/05

There was not much further to report on this complaint at the current time.  The matter was still being investigated by another agency and, until that investigation was concluded, the Council would not be able to establish if a breach of the Code of Conduct had taken place.  Clearly, this was a very delicate matter, and would need to be handled accordingly. 

Schedule item 7.  Complaint Ref: 2016/06

This case has been considered under the first stage of the complaints process and it had been concluded that no breach of the Code of Conduct had taken place.  Therefore, no further action would be taken. The complainant, when advised of this outcome on 10 May 2016, had said that he would take the case and the Monitoring Officer’s response to the press, but she was not aware that this has taken place.

Schedule item 8.  Complaint Ref: 2016/07

The Monitoring Officer said that this case was linked to an earlier complaint which she had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The next meeting of the Committee is scheduled for 6.00pm on Thursday 10 November, 2016.

The Committee noted that its next scheduled meeting was due to be held at 6pm on Thursday 10 November 2016.