Issue - meetings

RESOLVED: That the Standards Committee adopts the updated Councillor Complaints Handling Procedure at Appendix A (as amended).

Audio Recording – 24:04

The Monitoring Officer presented the report entitled “Review of Councillor Complaints Handling Procedure” along with Appendices A and B – Updated Councillor Complaints Handling Procedure (‘clean,’ and with tracked changes respectively).

The Monitoring Officer drew attention to the following:

·                The complaints handling procedure was last reviewed in May 2019 and the Council had committed to a review following the adoption of the new code of conduct;

·                On the day of this meeting the Local Government Association (LGA) had published their own complaints handling procedure;

·                The LGA had not consulted the Council on its procedure and officers had not input to it prior to publication so that document and the procedure proposed at Appendix A had not been compared;

·                The procedure at Appendix A was drawn from the Council’s own experience of complaint handling and was a practical document;

·                The Council would benefit from having a procedure in place and time for it to bed down before undertaking any further changes, and the LGA procedure would be investigated to see if there was any value in its adoption or adaptation;

·                The procedure at Appendix A incorporated a provision for encouraging local resolution were possible which would allow local councils to attempt to resolve issues;

·                The procedure also incorporated clearer complaint stages 1-6 and a flowchart to illustrate the process of a complaint.

The following Members asked questions and participated in debate:

·                Councillor Richard Thake

·                Councillor Judi Billing

·                Councillor Claire Strong

·                Councillor Mike Rice

·                Nicholas Moss, Independent Person

Points raised included:

·                Local resolution was a positive goal and should be promoted;

·                There were a range of reasons an elected member might cease to hold their position and the phrasing currently couched in the procedure was exclusive of some of those;

·                Any changes to the complaints handling procedure made, if delegated power was given, should be brought back to the Committee for members’ information;

·                It was unlikely that any changes would be made before the next meeting;

Nicholas Moss, Independent Person proposed that at paragraph 5.13 the words “Similarly, if the Councillor resigns or is not re-elected during…” be amended to “Similarly, if the Councillor ceases to hold office during..” to encompass all possible reasons that a member might cease to hold office.

The Monitoring Officer accepted this amendment to the report.

It was:

RESOLVED: That the Standards Committee adopts the updated Councillor Complaints Handling Procedure at Appendix A (as amended).