Issue - meetings

To submit the report of the Propriety and Elections Manager.

To approve the Annual Report of the Standards Committee for 2022-23 to be submitted to the full Council on 6 July, subject to minor amendments to the members' biographies.

Submitted - the report of the Propriety and Elections Manager appending a draft of the committee's annual report for 2022/23. The committee's observations and approval of the document were invited.

Attention was drawn to the fact that this year, for the first time, referring to the political groups' leaders' new duty to undertake an element of responsibility for promoting good behaviour and co-operate with the Standards Committee. It was noted:-

·         That it was early days in terms of this procedure, but that the work had taken place in terms of encouraging members to take part in Code of Conduct training along with establishing the procedure and agreeing on protocol for implementing the new duty for the future. 

·         That we need to move on to do further work on the duty and to develop the communication order surrounding it more extensively as the arrangements move forward.

·         That a part of the procedure is reactive to circumstances that arise around members' behaviour matters. That there would need to keep an eye on the situation, and should a situation arise, the Protocol set a clear procedure for approaching Leaders to discuss any specific concerns that arise.

In a response to a question, the Monitoring Officer confirmed that he was satisfied that the leaders had complied with their new duties during the year and there was a basis to move on to build on this work during the coming year.

In response to a question, it was confirmed that there was an intention to hold meetings with leaders quite regularly. It was also noted that there was an intention to arrange informal meetings between all Standards Committee members, the Leaders and the Chief Executive, possibly, to discuss the new duty on a practical level and the best way forward.   It was emphasised that there was no intention to discuss individual cases.

The Monitoring Officer was asked to move forward to arrange the meeting and discuss the programme with the Chair.

RESOLVED to approve the Annual Report of the Standards Committee for 2022-23 to be submitted to the full Council on 6 July, 2023, subject to minor amendments to the members' biographies.