Agenda item

Waverley adopted a local Members’ Code of Conduct and Arrangements for dealing with complaints under the Code of Conduct on 17 July 2012, in accordance with the requirements of the Localism Act 2011.  The Code of Conduct, Arrangements for dealing with Complaints, and the Planning Code of Conduct, were reviewed in 2016, and revised versions agreed by Council on 18 October 2016.

This report proposes a number of additions to the Code of Conduct which provide additional clarification on the core principles of the Code, and address some procedural matters on which the Code is currently silent.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the Standards Committee considers the proposed amendments to the Members Code of Conduct and recommends to Council that these be adopted.

29.1     The Standards Committee reviewed the proposed changes to the Members’ Code of Conduct at its meeting on 21 January 2019. The Committee had noted that the proposed amendments aimed to provide additional clarification on the core principles of the Code, and address some procedural matters on which the Code was currently silent in relation to recording sensitive information on the Register of Interests, removal of entries from the Register, and dispensations.

29.2     The Committee had noted that the proposed amendments did not impose any additional burdens on Members, and they had been broadly supportive of the clarifications proposed. However, there had been three parts of the proposed changes that the Committee had felt needed more clarification.

29.3     The new text at paragraphs 1(7) and 1(8) had previously been presented as one paragraph. At the request of the Committee, the separate elements had been split across two paragraphs.

29.4     The wording of Paragraph 5(6), relating to recording of sensitive interests on the Register of Interests, had been simplified as far as possible. The inclusion of this paragraph was important, as it made clear to councillors that there were circumstances when an interest legitimately might not be included in the published Register of Interests; and it made clear to the public that there were situations when with the agreement of the Monitoring Officer, a councillor might withhold the detail of a specific interest from the published Register. The Minister for Local Government, in his letter to Local Authority Leaders dated 7 March 2019, had encouraged Monitoring Officers to look sympathetically on requests by councillors to treat interests as ‘sensitive’ where there were legitimate concerns about abuse or intimidation.

29.5     At the previous meeting, Committee members had been concerned that the wording of Paragraph 7 would preclude them from taking part in any decisions other than those of the types specified. Officers explained that this paragraph had to be read in the context of previous paragraph 5(1) which stated that councillors should not participate in decisions where they could be reasonably seen as having an interest. For example, a councillor who has registered an interest (ownership) of a property in Waverley might be seen as having an interest in the setting of council tax. For the avoidance of any doubt, Paragraph 7 provided a dispensation to all members to take part in decisions on setting council tax, setting councillor allowances, and setting council house rents.

29.6     The Committee was satisfied with the further clarification provided on these parts of the Code of Conduct.

29.7     The Committee noted that at the end of January 2019, the Committee on Standards in Public Life published its long-awaited report on Local Government Ethical Standards. Officers would be reviewing the Code of Conduct, the Members’ Planning Code of Good Practice, and the Arrangements for dealing with complaints against councillors, in the light of the recommendations in the report and recent experience of applying the Arrangements, and bringing forward a report to a future meeting of the Committee.

29.8     The Committee RESOLVED to RECOMMEND to Council that the revised Members’ Code of Conduct (attached) be approved, and that all Waverley Town and Parish Councils be sent the revised Code of Conduct and encouraged to adopt the changes in their own Codes in order to maintain consistency with their Principal Authority.