Agenda item

Report of the Monitoring Officer.

The Monitoring Officer submitted a report on the outcome of a review of Wyre’s code of conduct undertaken by a working group of councillors.

She said that the working group had met on two occasions, the first to establish the remit of the group and provide officers with a clear instruction of what was required.At this meeting it had been agreed that officers should review best practice and undertake research and then report back with a revised code of conduct based on their findings. As part of this process they had been asked to:

·         consider the re-introduction of a number of commitments that were in the code prior to the Localism Act coming into force and considered to be best practice

·         Where appropriate expand on any definitions/provide examples to assist officers and members with interpretation

·         Simplify the wording around pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests

·         Make the advice regarding the registration of interests clearer to avoid misunderstandings that could ultimately lead to complaints

At its second meeting the group had been provided by officers with an updated draft Code of Conduct for consideration, based on codes in other councils and best practice. In addition, consideration had also been given to the type of complaints received.

In summary, the amendments to Part 1 of the Code submitted for consideration, were:

·         To include all possible behavioural elements, namely

§  Uphold the law

§  Respect the law

§  Have due regard for officer advice

§  Not bully a person

§  Not intimidate

§  Not disclose confidential data

§  Not bring office into disrepute.

·         It had also been suggested that, as bullying and intimidating were very similar, those behaviours should be grouped together. An explanation had also been provided, giving examples of what was considered to be bullying and intimidating and also, more importantly, what is wasn’t. The explanatory note also referred to the element of ‘banter’ which took place in the political arena and the intention not to increase the number of trivial complaints.

·         Further information had been provided with regard to public speaking and the need to make clear when views being made were those of the individual and not necessarily the Council.

The working group had agreed that all of the above would enhance the code and go some way to dealing with some of the complaints received in recent times.

The amendments proposed for Part 2 of the Code of Conduct had been intended to provide clarity around what should be included on the register and the requirements for declaring and interest. It had been acknowledged that the wording was currently complicated and therefore could do with simplifying to give a better understanding. It had, therefore, been divided into sections, the first addressed the need to register interests and addressed what should be included. Appendix A & B gave examples of pecuniary and non-pecuniary interest. There was then a section on how non-disclosable interests should be declared at meetings and how these would be managed in terms of discussions and voting. 

The proposed amendments had been accepted by the working group, with only a couple of very minor changes and were now being recommended to this Committee for endorsement.

The Monitoring Officer said, in response to a comment made by Councillor Matthew Vincent, that the Committee might wish to include some explanatory text in the Code to clarify what was meant by “respect”. She suggested that, if that was the case, it would be logical to use the same terminology as in the social media policy recently agreed by the Council.

The Monitoring Officer said in response to a further comment from Matthew Vincent, that it would not be possible, at this stage, for the Council to include in its Code a presumption that a Member was acting in their capacity as a Councillor unless they could clearly demonstrate that they were not. Whilst the Committee on Standards in Public Life had recommended the Government to consider such a presumption, it would not be legally possible to do so until there had been a change to legislation. The Localism Act 2011 specifically referred to codes of conduct applying to the behaviour of councillors when they acting in that capacity.

Finally, the Monitoring Officer advised that, although it had previously been anticipated that the recommendations of this Committee would be reported to the April meeting of the Council, it was now intended that it would be submitted to full Council on 19 July, when a review of the Constitution was also due to be considered.

Agreed:

1.    That the amendments to the Code of Conduct proposed by the Working Group set out in Appendix 1 of the report, be endorsed, subject to the inclusion of an additional explanatory note relating to the requirement to always treat others with respect”, stating that:

“if you make personal attacks or indulge in rude or offensive comments, this may be interpreted as disrespectful”.

2.    That the Council be recommended to approve the proposed amendments to Wyre’s Code of Conduct at its meeting on 19 July 2019 and include it in Part 5.01 of the constitution, in place of the current version.