Agenda item - Procedure for Local Investigation of Referred Complaints

Deferred from previous meeting. The Deputy Monitoring Officer’s report and comments received from Standards Committee members before the 25 August 2006 deadline are attached.

For decision.

The Standards Committee RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL that the Procedure for Local Investigations of Referred Complaints be adopted and included in the Constitution, subject to the following amendments:

(a) Introduction and Summary, second sentence: “This procedure ~~applies~~ will apply to the investigation of allegations of breaches of the authority’s Code of Conduct ~~for Members for both district and parish councils~~ by elected and co-opted members of the authority and to breaches of the Parish Council Code of Conduct by parish councillors, and the word ‘Councillor’ is to be taken to refer to all such persons.”

(b) Paragraph 2(b)(ii): “The identity of the person making the allegation (unless on the rare occasion at the outset of the investigation where identification of the complainant might prejudice the investigation or put the complainant at risk, this grant of anonymity being subject to constant review)”;

(c) Paragraph 2(f): “In notifying the Councillor of receipt of the allegation, the Monitoring Officer shall request the Councillor to respond to the Investigating Officer within 14 30 days of notification…”

(d) Paragraph 3(d): “Following notification of the allegation to the Councillor…”;

(e) Paragraph 3(f)(iii), additional sentence: “All interviews will be tape-recorded.”;

(f) Paragraph 3(g): “…~~such fees or allowances as he considers to be appropriate~~ all costs incurred, fees and professional charges subject to the maxima set by the authority”.

(g) The word “member” replaced with “councillor” throughout; and

(h) The word “shall” replaced with “will” throughout.

At the last meeting of the Standards Committee it had been agreed that the procedure for local investigations be referred to an extra-ordinary meeting but, when this had proven impossible to schedule, the procedure had been brought to this meeting. The Deputy Monitoring Officer thanked Councillor A Riley and Mr M Farrar for their comments and hard work reviewing this and the local hearing procedure, explaining that many of their comments had been incorporated into the revised draft. The Standards Committee currently had a remit to conduct an investigation locally only after an Ethical Standards Officer (ESO) referred a case, but in the future the Standards Committee would be managing all complaints. Two local investigations so far had been completed following the Standards Board for England (SBE) guidance, but a local procedure would draw together in one document both the SBE guidance and all relevant legislation.

At the request of the Standards Committee, the Deputy Monitoring Officer had written to the Chief Executive of the SBE, David Prince, and this letter and the response were included in the agenda. Attention was drawn to Mr Prince’s comments that “proposals are currently being developed to transfer the responsibility for the initial filtering of allegations to standards committees”, which the Chairman clarified as referring to upcoming draft legislation and statutory instruments. Members also considered Mr Prince’s statement that “all reports which conclude that there has been a breach of the code of conduct will therefore require a hearing…”, which seemed to curtail the authority of ESOs and which would have serious financial consequences for the District Council. The Deputy Monitoring Officer undertook to respond to Mr Prince seeking clarification of his statement about proposals being developed and to express the Standards Committee’s surprise at the removal of the right of an ESO to determine that no action be taken. It was agreed that a draft of her letter would first be circulated to Standards Committee members.

The Chairman explained that the move to increase the number of local investigations had arisen from the 2004 review of the investigatory process, through which the majority of Standards Committees and Monitoring Officers requested the ability to conduct local investigations, rather than a change in policy by the SBE made purely for financial reasons. The Chairman had raised with the Chief Executive in October 2005 the likely financial implications and the Standards Committee would be submitting a Business Plan to determine a budget to cover the likely workload, but there was no guarantee that a budget could be established.

There was no immediate urgency to adopt a local investigations procedure, as the existing SBE guidance could continue to be followed. Other than officer time already spent looking at a local procedure, there were no financial implications for deferring a decision until after the new legislation expected in early 2008. However, the Monitoring Officer confirmed that the nationally-issued SBE guidance was easy to follow, but lacked local insight into the role of parish councils. Councillor Riley proposed, seconded by Councillor Mrs CA Hunt, that a decision on a procedure for local investigation of referred complains be DEFERRED until the new legislation had been published and further information from the SBE had been received. On a show of hands the proposal was DEFEATED.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer then addressed policy areas highlighted by Committee members:

The Final Report, paragraphs 6(b)(i) and (ii) of the draft procedure

This information was current law and could not be overruled, although aspects of it probably would be addressed in the forthcoming legislation.

Role of Investigating Officer / Monitoring Officer, paragraph 2(a) of the draft procedure

The Monitoring Officer could pass the investigation job to an “Investigating Officer”, the job title of which was not derived from statute, but which covered the role. Although a delegation process existed, there were questions about resourcing and budgetary implications about appointing an outside firm. It was not necessary for the Investigating Officer to be legally trained and officers were consulting with other local authorities about their experiences with various organisations which provided investigatory services.

Withholding Name of Complainant

There were differing opinions on offering anonymity to the complainant: it could prevent a complainant from potential intimidation and harassment, but could disadvantage the subject member, making it difficult to prepare a defence and identify relevant witnesses. The Deputy Monitoring Officer clarified that the identity of the complainant could be kept anonymous only until certain safeguards were established to protect all parties, for example, ensuring that both parties did not attend the same meetings.

Response Time for Subject Member

There was general agreement that the subject member should have thirty days to respond to the Investigating Officer in writing, the previous timeframe of fourteen days being felt too short.

Conclusion

The Standards Committee, with ten in favour and two against, RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL that the Procedure for Local Investigations of Referred Complaints be adopted and included in the Constitution, subject to the following amendments: