ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
STANDARDS COMMITTEE
FEBRUARY 2004 TO FEBRUARY
2005
Bruce Claxton
Introduction
The main activities of the Committee during the reporting period are given in the numbered sections following. However, the Committee has other involvements in promoting the ethical agenda.
Through the initiative of the Chairman, a Forum for Independent Members of Standards Committee in the South of England was established and met for the first time in March 2004. Southampton City Council hosted the meeting which was attended by 34 people from 23 authorities (23 apologies). The response and outcomes were very positive; a second meeting was held in October 2004 hosted by Portsmouth City Council. A further meeting is scheduled to be held in Crawley in April, 2005.
The Chairman attended the Annual Assembly of Standards Committees arranged by the Standards Board for England and held in Birmingham in September, 2004. Although our Standards Committee is enlightened and progressive in comparison with many elsewhere in England many interesting aspects of the 2004 Assembly are pertinent to us. Thus the Isle of Wight Council both benefits from participation as well as contributing to the overall development and welfare of local government. The Chairman has been appointed to the Standards Board for England 2005 Annual Assembly of Standards Committees Steering Committee.
The Committee was invited to be interviewed by the Audit Commissions Best Value Inspectors in respect of the Audit Commission Inspection of Planning Services. The Vice Chairman was invited to be an external scrutiniser for the petition for a mayoral referendum. This was most significant because it provided an independent element to the scrutiny process which was particularly relevant because initially the very precise criteria for a successful petition were not met.
Bruce Claxton – Chairman Standards Committee
Main Highlights
1. Changes to the membership of the Committee
The only change to the membership of the Committee over this year has been the resignation of Councillor Heather Humby as one of the Isle of Wight Council representatives. She has been replaced by Councillor Vic Morey (who was one of the Deputies) and Councillor Muriel Miller has been appointed as one of the Isle of Wight Council Deputies.
Whilst there has been no change it is still disappointing that despite attempts to fill the vacancies there are still two vacancies for Independent members of the Committee. Whilst this is not necessarily a huge issue (there still being 5 Independent members) we did have to cancel our November meeting at short notice as we were unable to have a quorum due to various other commitments.
We are aware that all the Independent Members term of office expires on 5 May and that one of the first tasks for the new Council will be to appoint our successors. Whilst all the current Independent members are eligible for re-appointment we are working with the Monitoring Officer to see if we can attract more people to apply for these positions.
2. Ethical Audit
There was a brief mention in the last annual report that the Committee was beginning to work on an Ethical Audit and that we would be reporting back on the results during 2004. It was also anticipated that findings might lead to interim recommendations rather than await completion. The first phase was a desk top examination of Council documents; this lead to the adoption of certain interim recommendations.
At its meeting in June the Committee considered a report on an analysis of the data produced from the questionnaires that had been circulated earlier in the year. From this the Committee concluded that a number of interviews needed to be held with a range of individuals to test the results from the questionnaires and to gain a greater understanding of the issues raised. This process is still underway and we shall shortly be preparing a substantive report just on the Ethical Audit for Council’s consideration.
At our last meeting we agreed how we might roll this process out to Town and Parish Councils. This will indeed be a challenge and we hope that it is undertaken in a serious but relatively straightforward way so as not to be too time consuming on either ourselves or the Town and Parish Councils.
3. Publication of Members Attendance Records
The Committee has continued to monitor the publication of Members Attendance Records and we have on occasion had the benefit of first hand evidence from a range of members as to the benefits and issues that arise from this process.
In response to some of the issues raised we have agreed a minor change to the way that the attendance figures are published so that when a member is absent from a Council meeting due to other Council work this is not included in the “headline” attendance figures. This change was incorporated with the production of the latest figures.
Press coverage of the records is a little disappointing in that the purpose of the system was to illustrate the sort of commitments and work that members undertake, whereas the publicity tends to revolve around the percentage of meetings attended.
The Committee will continue to monitor the scheme and at its July meeting is planning to consider a detailed report on the scheme to see if it is meeting its objective of informing the public of the work undertaken by members. Any recommendations from the Committee will be reported to the Council.
4. Statement of Internal Control
As part of the new requirements for the Council to adopt a Statement of Internal Control, the Committee was asked to consider the assurance relating to the operation of the Standards Committee as part of the Council’s overall governance procedures.
We were pleased to be able to recommend to Council that the Committee has been able to undertake its planned work programme and that we would have been in a position to determine any issues referred to us by the Standards Board for England.
5. Review of Member/Officer relationship
As part of the Council’s review of its Constitution the Committee was asked to comment on the proposed new Member/Officer protocol. Generally we welcomed the proposed draft although we spent a little time carefully considering the wording relating to the section on officers lobbying Members. We needed to be sure that the proposed protocol reflected the highest possible standing.
We are pleased to see that the Council adopted our recommendations on this small, but important, point and that the protocol is now part of the Council’s Constitution.
6. Code of Practice for Members and Officers dealing with Development Control Matters
This was another piece of work that we looked at as part of the overall review of the Council’s constitution.
Again generally the proposed paper put before us met the high standards we expected. We spent a little more time, at the Council’s request, explicitly considering the wording relating to support (or not) of members of the Development Control Committee, for national or local policies and other member involvement at meetings of the Development Control Committee.
With regard to the first we considered it essential that members of the Development Control Committee generally supported national and local policies as otherwise it would become very difficult for such policies to be followed leading to all sorts of confusion and allegations.
On the issue of other members (who were not either on the Committee or members for the Electoral Division affected by the proposal) to be able to have some input at meetings of the Development Control Committee we thought that this was essentially a matter for the Chairman of the Development Control Committee provided that it was a material planning matter and that it had not been possible to submit such comments in writing.
Again, rather gratifyingly, the Council agreed with both of our suggestions and have incorporated our comments in the Constitution.
7. Matters from the Standards Board
A number of complaints against Island Councillors (both Isle of Wight Council and Parish/Town) have been considered by the Standards Board and with one exception none of these have been proven, although some were formally investigated but with the investigation concluding that there had been no breach of the code. However one issue of note that arose was that an individual lodged a complaint to the Standards Board alleging that 16 members of the Isle of Wight Council had not disclosed that they were (or were not) Freemasons. Whilst the Standards Board rejected at the earliest stage all these complaints the mere fact that a complaint had been submitted did cause concern for a number of members highlighting the difficulties that elected members can face even when following all the advice given. The Committee acknowledged that there was probably little that could be done about such complaints but will discuss with the Standards Board if some research could be undertaken to see if the level of complaints that they reject are similar in percentage to the complaints rejected by various other complaint procedures.
The one major issue arising from the behaviour of an Isle of Wight Councillor has lead to the banning from office for two years for Mr Bernard Buckle. Following a complaint the Standards Board investigated the allegations and concluded that Mr Buckle’s behaviour over a number of instances and time had fallen well below the standard expected. The full detail of the decision is still awaited at the time of writing but the Standards Committee will consider if there are any wider lessons to be learned from this case.
8. 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
|
|
Tuesday 12 April 2005 |
· Issues arising from Annual Conference · Report on the Review of ethics and probity in Parish/Town Council context. |
|
Tuesday 5 July 2005 |
· Review of the publication of Members Attendance figures |
|
Tuesday 6 September 2005 |
· To be determined |
|
Tuesday 8 November 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. |