To receive petitions, comments and questions from the public.
Decision:
The Chair confirmed that the registered speaker was in attendance.
Minutes:
Audio recording: 2 minutes 58 seconds
The Chair confirmed that the registered speaker was in attendance.
The Chair invited Mr David Cook to address the Committee regarding the Standards Matters Report. Mr Cook thanked the Chair for the opportunity and provided the Committee with a verbal presentation, including that:
· He had circulated documents to Members with his ideas.
· The purpose of this Committee was to inspire confidence in governance arrangements, and he had provided some ideas that could enhance and improve these arrangements and to stimulate thoughts for the future.
· The governance arrangements were at the heart of the code of conduct policy and provided Councillors a clear understanding of the expectations.
· There were references to Chairman throughout the policy document and these should have been changed to Chair.
· It would be useful for an appendix to be attached to the Council report with information regarding how apologises should be handled, especially as this was the most likely outcome of a complaint.
· The appendix should include a timeline for apologies and highlight that all apologies should be sincere.
· There should be clear consequences if an apology deadline was missed.
· The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee in March 2023 said the recipient of an apology would be consulted. However, this was not reflected in the policy and there were concerns that this was unclear.
· It was unclear in the policy what was deemed an acceptable apology, whose judgement decided if an apology was acceptable and could Officers offer assistance.
· The Policy was unclear on whether an apology was still sincere after, missed deadlines, ongoing negotiations and when it was not accepted.
· The Policy should inspire confidence regarding the expectations following a complaint, these expectations were still unclear for all parties.
The following Members asked points of clarification:
· Councillor Ralph Muncer
· Councillor Richard Thake
· Councillor Val Bryant
In response to points of clarification, Mr Cook advised that:
· Previously he was a Chief Executive of a Local Authority and was recruited to work at the Improvement and Development Agency as well as being a concerned citizen.
· The policy was unclear on how many times it was acceptable to miss an apology deadline. A recipient should be given a clear timescale and if these deadlines were missed the matter should be escalated.
· There were differences when a complaint was handled by the Committee to those handled as informal resolutions.
· The biggest deterrent to complaints was public knowledge. Currently the Committee received an abridge report for any complaints that were handled informally.
· The policy lacked clarity as to whether the level of experience of a Councillor or the duration over which the complaint related to should be considered, and this needed to be more transparent.
· Should a vexatious complaint be upheld then the likelihood was that the complaints were not vexatious. No one should be discouraged from submitting any complaint.
The Chair clarified that all complaints were reviewed by the Independent Person, and a judgement was made regarding formal or informal action. Informal complaints were held in confidence as stated in 8.2 of the policy, however there were some exceptions.
The Chair thanked Mr Cook for his presentation.