Agenda and draft minutes

Councillor Simon Howell was elected as Chairman.

To receive any declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests and other interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting.

None.

Councillor Dudley Hoddinott was appointed as Vice-Chairman.

To consider the report of the monitoring officer (attached).

The sub-committee considered a report on the arrangements for panels to determine code of conduct complaints referred by the monitoring officer and revised procedures for and information on dealing with such complaints.

The Joint Audit and Governance Committee had considered the report and had made a number of recommendations to the sub-committee. It had also suggested an amendment to the flow chart attached to the code of conduct complaints fact sheet (Appendix 2 to the report) to make clear that any requests for confidentiality would be dealt with during the initial overview.

RESOLVED: to

(a) appoint (on an ongoing basis until May 2019) complaints panels comprising three members of the sub-committee or their appointed substitutes to determine code of conduct complaints referred by the monitoring officer;

(b) appoint each member or substitute of the sub-committee to serve on any complaints panel which is convened so as to include her or him in its membership;

(c) agree that wherever possible, a panel should comprise the chairman or vice-chairman of the sub-committee plus two other members of the sub-committee, but that this should not affect the principle that any three members of the sub-committee will constitute a properly appointed panel;

(d) authorise the head of legal and democratic services to convene panels to consider code of conduct complaints having regard to members’ availability and eligibility to take part;

(e) adopt the revised procedures for dealing with code of conduct complaints set out in appendix one to the report with effect from 1 April 2016 (and subject to further review in 2019);

(f)  authorise the monitoring officer to make minor amendments to the procedures including minor or consequential amendments required for clarification, consistency and compliance with the councils’ style guide; and

(g) subject to the suggested amendment detailed above, note the revised document entitled Code of conduct complaints: fact sheet set out in appendix two to the reportthat will continue to provide information for members of the public when making code of conduct complaints.