Agenda item

Considered –

The report of the Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Democratic Services and Monitoring Officer regarding the draft Annual Report of the work of the Standards and Governance Committee for the municipal year commencing 1 April 2024.

The Committee had agreed that it would be helpful to publish an Annual Report on its work to the Council in order to raise the profile of the Committee and strengthen awareness of its work and ethical standards generally.

An Annual Report also assists in discharging the Council’s statutory duty to promote and maintain high standards of conduct and also ensures that the Council has an overview of work undertaken by the Committee in discharging the Council’s standards responsibilities.

The draft Annual Report for the year commencing 1 April 2024 was attached for Members’ consideration and approval at Appendix 1 and would be presented to a future meeting of the Council.

The Senior Governance Lawyer presented the report and highlighted that the Standards and Governance Committee was a vital part of the Council’s ethical framework under the Localism Act 2011. The report covered the work undertaken by the Committee to promote this standards regime, including a review of national ethical framework developments, training, a review of standards documentation, and dealing with complaints.

The Committee were advised of a typographical error on page 51 at paragraph c) ii which should read “1 case”.

In response to a question from a Member in relation to staffing resource, the Assistant Director Legal and Deputy Monitoring Officer, reported that internal staffing levels were adequate for the current volume of work, which was becoming more manageable since Vesting Day. She also confirmed that the Council recognised the need to build greater resilience in the number of suitably qualified External Investigators. It was confirmed that a vacancy remained for an Independent Person following the resignation of Roy Martin. The two Independent Persons present, Louise Holroyd and Gillian Baker expressed the view that 4 Independent Persons was adequate for the current workload, and that this could be reviewed if required in the future.

One Member requested details around the reasons for 109 complaint cases not being investigated. In response, it was confirmed that some complaints concerned matters which the Council had no jurisdiction to investigate, some were blanket complaints against multiple members of the same parish/town council brought by the same complainant and were in effect a complaint about parish/town council operational matters, and in some instances, the level of resource required to investigate was not proportionate to the nature of the complaint. A request was made to emphasise the difference between complaints made against NYC councillors and parish councillors within the report.

Members voiced concerns around the attendance of parish and town councils at standards training sessions held by the Deputy Monitoring Officer and suggested that alternative methods of contacting parish councillors be explored. Officers explained that a recording of the training was available to parish councils. It was confirmed that standards training would be offered to the new town councils for Harrogate and Scarborough.

Resolved

That the Standards and Governance Committee approves the draft Annual report for presentation to a future meeting of full Council.