Paper B

DRAFT

 

 

 

 

ISLE OF WIGHT COUNCIL

 

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STANDARDS COMMITTEE

 

FEBRUARY 2003 TO FEBRUARY 2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruce Claxton

Chairman of the Standards Committee

 

Introduction

 

The year has shown progress in response to the slowly evolving delegated legislation emerging from the Local Government Act 2000. The Section 66 Regulations have now come into force. The Council has accepted a recommendation relating to the non-payment of member allowances during any period of suspension and the revision of the quorum arrangements in given circumstances.

 

There have been a number of changes to the Standards Committee membership; these are given in detail later on. Thanks are extended to those members who have left the committee.

 

The committee’s monitoring role has extended to the publication by the Council of Members Attendance Records and the commencement of an ethical audit. The former will be evaluated to determine the efficiency of the product against the intent and aspirations of the format.

 

The issue of Members Indemnity and Insurance Arrangements was an important task undertaken during the year. A review of potential liabilities to which members can be exposed when appointed to outside bodies was a matter of concern. The Council should not be responsible for the liabilities a Member may be exposed to as a result of such appointment. It was recommended that Members should be properly made aware of relevant issues before considering being appointed. Later in the year the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister sought comments in respect of draft legislation in this regard; observations and suggestions were made.

 

A complaint was made to the Standards Board for England in respect of its own procedures. The matter is making its way through the appeals process.

 

 

Bruce Claxton – Chairman Standards Committee

Main Highlights

 

1.            Changes to the membership of the Committee

 

a.            During the year there have been a number of changes to the membership of the Committee.

 

b.            On the Independent Members side we have welcomed Mr George Hibberd and Mr David Watson to the Committee to fill the vacancies left by His Honour John Wroath and Mr David Hansford. Ian Ward has very recently decided to resign his membership of the committee.

 

c.            Along with Mrs Joy Harding and Professor David Farnham my own term of office expired during the year however both Mrs Harding and I were re-appointed by the Council. David Farnham decided owing to pressures of work not to seek re-appointment. This leaves us with two vacancies for Independent Members and I hope that the Council will be able to recruit to the vacancy shortly. Attempts during the Autumn were unsuccessful in attracting any candidates.

 

d.            On the Isle of Wight Council  Members side Mrs Terry Butchers had to leave the Committee on being appointed to the Executive and Mr Tony Coburn formally resigned owing to work pressures. Currently the Council Members are: Mr Mike Cunningham and Miss Heather Humby with Mr Vic Morey as 1st Deputy and Mrs Peggy Jarman as 2nd Deputy – a vacancy still exists for the 3rd Deputy.

 

e.            I remain grateful to all those named for their service.

 

2.            Members Indemnity and Insurance Arrangements

 

a.            The Committee considered the issue of Members Indemnity and Insurance Arrangements and directly related to this the involvement of Members in outside bodies.

 

b.            Whilst appearing simple issues in the first instance it soon became apparent that there were a number of conflicting issues including:

 

                                                              i.      The need to protect Members acting in genuine “good faith” balanced against the need to protect the Council Tax payer from additional costs if a member were ever to act recklessly;

 

                                                            ii.      Lack of clarity in law as to exactly what the Council could and could not provide in way of members indemnity;

 

                                                          iii.      The demand to try and protect Members who were wrongly accused of breaching the Code of Conduct but who nevertheless needed advice to defend themselves during any such investigation balanced against the principle that the Council Tax should not be used to defend Members who were found guilty of breaching the Code of Conduct; and

 

                                                           iv.      How Members are protected in the work they do when representing the Council on various outside bodies balanced against the need to ensure that the Council is not in effect subsidising those outside bodies by providing them with the insurance cover that they themselves should have.

 

    1. I was pleased that having worked through all this the Committee were able to make a number of recommendations which were adopted by the Council at its July meeting to extend the indemnity provided by to Members to include the costs of defending actions were it is legally possible.

 

    1. On the issue of outside bodies the Committee noted that a review of all outside bodies is currently being undertaken by the Resources Committee and we await the recommendations of that Committee.

 

3.            Councillors Job Profiles

 

a.            Following consideration of the recommendations of the Remuneration Panel in 2002 the Council asked the Standards Committee to look at defining the roles of members so that Members the general public could understand what was expected of the various posts.

 

b.            During this year we prepared, in consultation with all Members, and finally recommended to the Council a range of “Job Profiles”. I was pleased when these were adopted by the Council and they now form part of the Council’s constitution.

 

4.            Members Attendance Records.

 

a.            As part of the work on “Job Profiles” we also looked at how the public could be better informed about the number of hours that members spend on Council related business. Again following consultation we recommended to Council a procedure for publishing Members attendance records.

 

b.            In addition to publishing the factual statistics as to how many formal meetings a Member did attend compared to the number of formal meetings that they were invited to as members of that meeting we recommended that statistics should be produced on the number of formal task group and training sessions attended. We appreciated that this would only record the “formal” meetings and that there were still a fast range of other meetings and activities that took up Members time. It was for this reason that we invite all members to put an estimate of the amount of time they spend per week on other business and give them an opportunity to explain the activities that they are involved in outside of the “formal” meetings.

 

c.            The Council adopted our recommendations with the caveat that in view of their civic work the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Council should be excluded from the process.

 

d.            The first 6 months of figures were published at the beginning of December and were reported in the press. I appreciate that as with all new things we need to review this and learn from our experiences. The Standards Committee is currently looking at the system to see if it can be improved and if it actually achieves the purpose of providing the general public with a greater understanding of the level work Members undertake by virtue of being a Councillor. I anticipate that we will report back to the Council on this issue during 2004.

 

5.            Ethical Audit for the Isle of Wight Council

 

a.            The Committee is continuing its work on carrying out an Ethical Audit of the Isle of Wight Council so as to continue the drive of improving the standards of ethics and probity within the Council.  A questionnaire is due to be sent to a range of individuals during February. I anticipate that we will be reporting back on the results during 2004.

 

6.            Section 66 Regulations

 

a.            In June the first part of the regulations made under Section 66 of the Local Government Act 2000 (“the s66 Regs”) were made. These essentially enable your Standards Committee to consider matters referred to it by the Ethical Standards Officer for local determination as to whether the Code of Conduct has been breached.

 

b.            If the Standards Committee considers that there has been a breach then, for the first time, we have the ability to pass a sanction of a suspension of up to 3 months.

 

c.            Whilst I am pleased to say that to date the Committee has not had to consider any such referral we did all undertake a training session during the autumn to ensure that we all understood what was required of us and what we needed to do.

 

d.            We are still awaiting the second part of the s66 Regs which will deal with the ability of the Monitoring Officer to investigate complaints. The issue here is that the Monitoring Officer has a role to advise Members on issues relating to the Code of Conduct, advise the Standards Committee when it hears complaints and also to investigate (usually at an informal and initial level) any such complaints that are not submitted direct to the Standards Board. It is not difficult to see that this “three hat” role could cause some problems and it is hoped that the awaited recommendations will help to clarify this and allow the Monitoring Officer to delegate some of his functions if the need arises.

 

e.            A matter of detail that arose from this whole issue was the payment of member allowances during any period of suspension. The Committee was pleased when the Council adopted its recommendations to ensure that during any period of disqualification Members would not be able to receive their basic or special responsibility allowance.

 

7.            Annual Standards Board Conference and Independent Members Network

 

a.            During June I was grateful to be able to attend the annual Standards Board conference in Birmingham with the Deputy Monitoring Officer. This was particularly useful as it was at the conference that the s66 regulations were issued and we were able to devote some time looking at these. I have reported previously on the detail of the conference.

 

b.            At the conference it was clear that a number of Independent Members would value some form of “Independent Members Network”. I am pleased to say that following the support of the Monitoring Officer the first initial meeting of such a network has been arranged for 11th March in Southampton. At this meeting the level of demand will be assessed before we consider if it is worthwhile continuing with.

 

8.            Training

 

a.            As part of our continued role to ensure that all Councillors (including Parish and Town Councillors) are properly trained we held a refresher training in the Codes of Conduct on 25 June 2003. This will be an annual event and will be complemented by other training as the need or demand arises.

 

9.            Summary of Complaints submitted to the Standards Board

 

    1. During the year a number of complaints against Isle of Wight Councillors (including Parish and Town Councillors) have been submitted to the Standards Board. Of these so far only three were investigated by Ethical Standards Officers:

 

                                                              i.      The first case it was concluded that a Councillor had breached the Code of Conduct by failing to complete his register of interests. The member was disqualified until 1 April 2004.

 

                                                            ii.      In the second case it was concluded that no action needed to be taken as the evidence was insufficient.

 

                                                          iii.      The third case lead to the disqualification of a Ventnor Town Councillor for a period of 18 months as it was concluded that he had breached the Code of Conduct by:

 

1.      By not treating others with respect; and

2.      He had conducted himself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing his office or authority into disrepute.

 

    1. Following the first case, and as a recommendation by the Standards Board, the Monitoring Officer wrote to all Parish Clerks reminding them of the need to ensure that all Councillors had completed their Registers of Interest correctly.

 

    1. The Committee monitors all such complaints and will act to deal with any training issues that arise as quickly as possible.

 

10.       Future Work Programme

 

a.            The Committee has established a work programme for the remainder of the year and this is set out below:

 

Meeting

Agenda Item

Wednesday 23 June 2004

·        Methodology for review of ethics and probity in Parish/Town Council context.

·        Report on Ethical Audit of the Isle of Wight Council

Tuesday 19 October 2004

·        Report on the Review of ethics and probity in Parish/Town Council context.

·        Work Programme for the year 2005

February 2005

·        To be determined.

Standing items

·        Report on Standards Board activity including guidance; statistics; analysis; case reports.

·        The Committee’s Work Programme

Other meetings as necessary

·        Allegations referred by the Standards Board for England and Wales for local determination.

·        Requests for dispensations.

·        Urgent ethical and probity issues as they arise.