Minutes:
The Chairman welcomed the Group Leaders to the meeting explaining that the role of the Standards Committee was apolitical. Recently the Committee had been doing a lot of work around the importance of standards for Councillors, in this respect the Chairman expressed particular thanks to the two Independent Persons who had dedicated significant time to supporting ethical standards across the Council.
The Group Leaders responded to the following questions from Members of the Committee:
How do you feel your Members behaviour measures up to the high ethical standards we expect in Bromley and what do you do as a leader to hold yourself accountable to ensuring those standards?
The Leader of the Labour Group highlighted that with eight members it was a smaller group to manage. The Leader of the Labour Group confirmed that she was not aware of any problems and had not received complaints concerning standards within the Labour Group either through the formal Code of Conduct complaints system or informal systems. The Committee noted that as a Party there was a very clear ‘rule book’ and strict processes in place for approving candidates for selection. This tried to ensure a high calibre of candidate. There was also an internal Group disciplinary process which operated in parallel to Council processes to investigate any complaints that were made about Councillors. There were a range of penalties that were available internally.
The Leader of the Council confirmed that 99% of the time he was content with the integrity of members. In relation to the other 1% of the time, it had been made very clear to the odd Member on the rare occasion that better was expected. The Committee noted that on the rare occasions that the Leader received complaints directly, they were forwarded to the Monitoring Officer for consideration. It had been made clear to members of the Conservative Group that involvement in ‘dishonourable’ process would not be tolerated. The Party had a Chief Whip to administer discipline and the Leader confirmed that broadly speaking he felt the system worked well and all councillors needed to aspire to the high standards set by the Act. The Committee received reassurance that any emerging issues were drawn to the attention of the Monitoring Officer to ensure full diligence.
The Leader of the Independent Group confirmed that as a Party of 2 there were very few issues. Where any issues arose, both Members of the Independent Group would seek advice from the Monitoring Officer if necessary.
Are you aware of any inappropriate influencing behaviour within the broader councillor community?
The Leader of the Labour Group confirmed that complaints had been made to her, with two of the major complaints centring on planning which was a particularly sensitive area and an area that was particularly open to allegations of inappropriate and undue influence as well as false allegations. Whilst there had been an awareness of allegations it had never been possible to prove the allegations. In that context it was the view of the Leader of the Labour Group that the processes for trying to investigate those complaints were not necessarily adequate. The Leader of the Labour Group suggested that there was a fundamental problem when there were large numbers of planning committee members who were members of political parties and who also worked in the property development sector. The instinct of the Leader of the Labour Group was that such members should not sit on planning committees due to obvious potential conflict of interest.
The Leader of the Council concurred with the view of the Leader of the Labour Group in respect of concerns around the appearance of the influence of developers across the Borough. However, a key problem was that concerns were based on supposition, impression and appearance with the key issue being that appearances counted as much as fact in a politically sensitive environment. The Leader stated that whilst there was an appearance of influence he hated to think that this was the case in substance and fact. However, separating the two was where there was an evident need for the Standards Committee to intercede on occasion. It was noted that it was the perception issue around planning that concerned a number of people. The Leader stressed that if at any point he became aware of inappropriate influence he would immediately draw it to the attention of the Monitoring Officer, irrespective of the political background of the councillor involved.
In relation to the issue of perception, the Chairman of the Committee highlighted that there was a clear perception on social media that when any planning application was submitted, Bromley Council would grant permission because members and council officials were ‘in the pocket of some developer’ yet there was never any evidence provided to substantiate the perception. The Committee noted that it was unfortunate that the professional reputation of Planning Officers was sometimes besmirched on social media with no evidence.
The Leader of the Independent Group suggested that it would be difficult to move away from perception issues around planning and consequently members had to ensure that all relevant interest were declared where necessary and members acted with integrity at all times.
The Code of Conduct was updated by the Standards Committee in October 2020, have the Group Leaders read the updated Code?
All Group Leaders confirmed that they had.
Complaints come in for all sorts of reasons, do Group Leaders feel the processes in place are an effective and timely way of addressing complaints and dealing with the issues raised by residents?
The Leader of the Council suggested it was a difficult question as no one could or would have any issues with people complaining. Over the years one of the frustrations that had crept in was around the small percentage of residents who used complaints to the Standards Committee as a threat. Complaints of this nature were tedious, time-wasting, unfair on the individuals. As such it was quite right that it was possible to quickly filter out complaints of this nature. In relation to complaints that were made anonymously, the Leader of the Council suggested that these should be filtered out immediately unless there was a strong reason identified by the Monitoring Officer, Independent Person and Chairman of the Standards Committee that the anonymous complaint should be investigated. There was no place for vexatious anonymous complaints but equally, the standards regime should have slightly more teeth in cases where there was something self evidently and palpably wrong but that did not necessarily meet the threshold for a breach of the Code of Conduct. However, the Leader of the Council was mindful of the fact that these issues often related to individuals and differing personalities and as such the integrity of the Standards Committee would have to be of a level whereby judgement could be made and penalties imposed for those more minor indiscretions that did not qualify for serious sanction as opposed to the sanctions for the far more serious offenses which had to be referred to other bodies. The Leader of the Council highlighted that the Standards Committee was an important committee in terms of upholding the principle of local integrity.
The Leader of the Independent Group reported that there had been some recent feedback suggested that residents considered that there was no point in complaining as issues were ‘pushed under the carpet’. As such it may be helpful to have more openness and transparency around how complaints were handled with detail back to the complainant so they understood that whilst complaints were thoroughly reviewed in most cases there was no other option but to not take the complaint forward. It was stressed that there was clearly a requirement on all Members to ‘play by the rules’ and uphold the high standards expected.
The Leader of the Labour Group explained that she did not feel the processes in place were satisfactory. The issue was complex and people submitted complaints for a number of reasons with there needed to be a formal process. There was a serious issue around the fact that complainants did not understand how their complaint would be dealt with. Complainants needed to understand that complaints had to fall within the Code of Conduct in order to be considered and then the initial assessment process meant that there was a lack of transparency because very few complaints made it through this filtering process. The Leader of the Labour Group suggested it was unsurprising that residents did not have faith in the system as so few complaints merited formal investigation. It was suggested that it may be helpful to see some national benchmarking with other Councils to identify how issues were managed. It was stressed that councillors were public servants and as such there should be a level of accountability.
The Independent Person provided the Group Leaders with assurance that whilst there may be an issue with transparency, the Council was now in a position where every Code of Conduct complaint (including detail and background) received was reviewed by an Independent Person. It was important therefore to dispel the notion that Officers could simply filter out complaints, not that Officers would do this. The processes were being reviewed very closely by the Standards Committee to ensure further transparency.
The Chairman highlighted that whilst it was important that residents had faith in the complaints system, it was equally important that Councillors had faith in the system. As such it was important that there was evidence that any complaints proceeding to formal investigation met the thresholds for a breach of the Code of Conduct. The Chairman confirmed that he did review other Local Authorities and in cases where councillors had been disciplined the level of activity leading to sanction was proportionate to the fact that the councillor had been disciplined.
The Committee thank the Group Leaders for the time taken to attended the meeting.