Agenda item

Schedule prepared by the Monitoring Officer.

The Monitoring Officer will report verbally on the latest position with regard to the complaints listed and any issues arising from them.

The Monitoring Officer submitted a schedule summarising 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.  She provided further information to the Committee at the meeting, as follows:

Ref:2016/18

The Committee had been informed at its’ last meeting that this complaint was more or less concluded. Unfortunately, the subject member, having initially agreed to the make an apology, had subsequently refused to do so. They had been given two opportunities to make the apology at an appropriate public meeting, but had declined on both occasions. The Monitoring Officer therefore had no alternative but to recommend that the complaint be brought before a special Standards hearing.

Ref: 2017/01

This matter related to the wording of minutes. The Committee had been informed at its’ last meeting that the subject member had acknowledged that some clarification to the wording of the minutes was required and that a mechanism to rectify that was being sought. Since then an electronic link has been added on the website against the minutes in question which, when clicked on, took the reader to a report of the Monitoring Officer which clarified the wording. This matter was therefore now closed.

Ref: 2017/04

A meeting between the Monitoring Officer, an Independent Person and the subject member had taken place. Having listened to the information provided the Monitoring Officer and the Independent Person had been of the view that a breach of the code had occurred and that an apology would be an appropriate way to deal with this matter. However, the subject member had declined that solution and a special Standards Committee Hearing would therefore need to be convened.

It was hoped that it would be possible to arrange the hearings for both this case and for case Ref: 2016/18 on the same day. Members would be informed as soon as possible of the date and detailed arrangements for each of the hearings.

Refs: 2017/05, 2017/06, 2017/07 and 2017/08

The Monitoring Officer said that these four fairly recent complaints had all been made by the same complainants and were related to a single event, but were about four different subject members.

No progress had yet been made on Ref: 2017/05, other than the preliminary tests having been being completed.

No progress had yet been made on Ref 2017/06, other than the preliminary tests being completed.

Complaint Ref: 2017/07 was not being taken further by the Monitoring Officer because the member who was the subject of the complaint had not been considered to be acting as Councillor when the alleged behaviour took place.

Complaint Ref: 2017/08 was also not being taken further by the Monitoring Officer because the member who was the subject of the complaint had again not been considered to be acting as Councillor when the alleged behaviour took place.

RESOLVED:

That the summary of current complaints submitted by the Monitoring Officer and her verbal report on each of the complaints referred to, including the arrangements being made for two Standards Committee hearings, be noted.