Agenda item

MONITORING OFFICER'S GENERAL REPORT

Minutes:

Report CSD20039

 

The report updated the Committee on a number of standards issues.

 

Matters Outstanding and Work Programme

 

It was agreed that it would be helpful to populate a full Work Programme for the 2020/21 municipal year.  All three Group Leaders would be invited to the October 2020 meeting.

 

Complaints

 

In order to provide assurances that high ethical standards were operating it was agreed that Dr Davey and Mr Palmer would meet with the Director of Corporate Services to review the complaints that that had been received within the last 12 months.

 

The Director of Corporate Services provided an overview of the complaints that had been received since the last meeting.  The Standards Committee noted that when a complaint was upheld details of the complaint would enter the public domain.

 

The Director of Corporate Services also confirmed that Group Leaders were copied into the responses to complaints that were received.

 

Revised Code of Conduct

 

The Standards Committee discussed amendments that had been suggested by the Labour Group.  Councillor Allen reported that the Labour Group had felt that Bullying and Harassment should be more defined with a greater emphasis on the perception of the victim.

 

The Director of Corporate Services highlighted that the section on page 49 of the report contained a definition of bullying and harassment adopted by the UK devolved administrations and to some extent this addressed the issue of the perception of victims.  Other Members felt that whilst the perception of the victim of bullying and harassment was an important consideration this was different from it being ‘paramount’.  Members considered that there were other equally important considerations such as the perception of third parties.  Therefore it was agreed that paragraph 1.14 should reflect that the perception of the victim was ‘important’.

 

The Standards Committee requested that formatting changes be made to the draft document, such as extracting definitions from the Statutory Instrument and highlighting the appendix.

 

The following changes were also agreed

 

Paragraph 1.12 – “You must take adequate steps to familiarise yourself and comply with your duties around GDPR complaint storage and disposal of sensitive data.”

 

Paragraph 1.15 – “You must not make trivial or malicious complaints about other Councillors…”

 

It was noted that the reference to the 2018 Councillors’ Code of Conduct in paragraph 2.1.1needed to be updated.

 

Members recalled that the Standards Committee had previously adopted some public interests principles  in relation to social media and when the Code of conduct would apply.  It was also recognised that, if given the required parliamentary time, the Report on Standards in Public Life may deal with this issue.

 

The Standards Committee discussed and considered how freedom of speech would apply to co-opted members.  It was noted that there would be a distinction between taking part in discussions at Committee meetings – where there would likely be protections around qualified privilege – and a co-opted member acting in a personal capacity.

 

It was agreed that that the draft Code of Conduct would be updated and circulated to members of the Standards Committee prior to presentation at the next Full Council.

 

RESOLVED: That

 

1. The report be noted; and

 

2. The updates outlined above be made to the Code of Conduct.

Supporting documents: