PURPOSE

1. To suggest to the Committee a “scoping” of a range of activities around the Ethical Agenda in as far as it relates to Partnering and Contracting.

BACKGROUND

2. The Committee completed last year an Ethical Audit of the Isle of Wight Council and a “lighter touch” exercise for the Parish and Town Councils. These looked at the internal workings of both tiers of governance and made a number of recommendations and action points.

3. However it is clear that for the Isle of Wight Council it conducts a large amount of its service delivery through contracts and increasingly through Partnerships. Clearly there is scope for the Standards Committee to have re-assurance that such contracts and partnerships are undertaken with the same high ethical regard – and this paper looks at how this Committee could achieve such a re-assurance.

PROPOSAL

4. There are already the following range of activities planned that impact on this proposed workstream of the Committee:

a. Review of the Members Attendance and role on Outside Bodies (as previously commissioned by the Committee).

b. Preparation of a Good Practice Guide for Partnerships (due to be signed off at officer level on25 September), leading to preparation of a Partnership Register and Partnership “Standing Orders”.

c. Our Contract Standing Orders were fundamentally reviewed in June last year and we believe them to be “fit for purpose” from an ethical (and other) viewpoint. Inevitably though things move on so some minor updates are already required and as part of this exercise it would be helpful to have an external validation by the Standards Committee of the ethical issues.

5. With regard to the first the Committee has already established a Panel of the Chairman, George Hibberd, Erica Oulton and Chris Mathews to look at a questionnaire (yet to be issued) on Members and Outside Bodies. It is suggested

6. that the remit of this Panel be extended to include a review of the various documents detailed in Para 4(b) and (c) above with a report back to this committee as necessary on its findings. The Panel should be asked to consider the ethical issues around contracting/partnerships rather than of course a full scale review of all matters relating to this area of work.

7. Whilst the Panel will receive due priority we need to ensure that this is dovetailed with the existing commitments of the Council so as to not unduly add to the work load. A suggested timescale is:

October 2006 – Review of the Good Practice Guide for Partnerships and the proposed Partnership Register.

December 2006 - Review of the proposed Partnership “Standing Orders” and review of the questionnaire on Members and Outside Bodies.

February 2007 - Ethical Review of Contract Standing Orders.

April 2007 - Final Report from the Panel for the Committee to approve on findings and actions on ethical issues that may arise (it is anticipated that any recommendations from the Panel will be incorporated as the work is progressed – rather than await this final report – the Committee will recall that this was the approach taken with the Ethical Audit).

RECOMMENDATIONS

8. That the above work plan be noted and worked to – whilst acknowledging that as other priorities arise there maybe slippage and progress will be reported back to this Committee.

Contact Point : Chris Mathews, telephone: 823280, Email: [email protected]

JOHN LAWSON

Director Performance, Policy and Partnerships and Monitoring Officer