Venue: Committee Room 3, Hove Town Hall. View directions
Contact: Penny Jennings, Senior Democratic Services Officer
Items
| No. |
Item |
56. |
Procedural Business
(a)
Declaration of Substitutes - Where Councillors are
unable to attend a meeting, a substitute Member from the same
Political Group may attend, speak and vote in their place for that
meeting.
(b)
Declarations of Interest by all Members present of
any personal interests in matters on the agenda, the nature of any
interest and whether the Members regard the interest as prejudicial
under the terms of the Code of Conduct.
(c)
Exclusion of Press and Public - To consider whether,
in view of the nature of the business to be transacted, or the
nature of the proceedings, the press and public should be excluded
from the meeting when any of the following items are under
consideration.
NOTE: Any
item appearing in Part 2 of the Agenda states in its heading the
category under which the information disclosed in the report is
exempt from disclosure and therefore not available to the
public.
A list and description of the exempt
categories is available for public inspection at Brighton and Hove
Town Halls.
Minutes:
|
56a
|
Declarations of
Interest
|
|
56.1
|
There
were none.
|
|
56b
|
Exclusion of Press and
Public
|
|
56.2
|
The
Committee considered whether the press and public should be
excluded from the meeting during the consideration of any items
contained in the agenda, having regard to the nature of the
business to be transacted and the nature of the proceedings and the
likelihood as to whether, if members of the press and public were
present, there would be disclosure to them of confidential or
exempt information as defined in Schedule 12A, Part 5A, Section
100A(4) or 100 1 of the Local Government Act 1972 (as
amended).
|
|
56.3
|
RESOLVED
- That the press and public be not
excluded from the meeting.
|
|
57. |
New Arrangements, relative to Standards Committee (England) Regulations 2008 for dealing with Complaints made against Members of the Council  PDF 183 KB
Additional documents:
Decision:
RESOLVED: (1) That the Committee notes
the correction of the errors in the
original Guidance;
(2) That Sections 1 to 6 which form the
appendix to
the report
on Local Assessment of Complaints
be amended
accordingly to correct
any errors which have
arisen from
using the
initial version of the Guidance and
that they
be approved in that form;
(3) That authority be given to the
Director of
Strategy and Governance (as
Monitoring Officer)
(ii)
to make
the necessary amendments to the arrangements and procedures and
(ii)
to make
appointments of independent person(s) who
serve on
other authorities’
Standards Committees.
Minutes:
|
57.1
|
The
Committee considered a report of the Director
of Strategy
and Governance setting out and requesting
Members’ agreement to
the new
arrangements and procedures for
the local
assessment of ethical standards
complaints against Members (for copy
of report
and supporting annexes see minute book).
|
|
57.2
|
The Principal
Solicitor tabled an errata sheet setting out errors
in the
Guidance issued by the
Standards Board relative
to the
Local Assessment of Complaints.
The action
taken to
remedy them
was also
set out
(for copy
see minute book). All that appeared
necessary for the Appendix
to the
report relative to errors in the Guidance, was that in
Section 4, Paragraph 32, the “not”
needed to
be deleted in the third sentence.It
was explained that the Standards
and Complaints Team had posted information
on the
Council’s website detailing
the new
arrangements and in “City News”, this also
included information appertaining
to any
complaints made relative to
Members of
Rottingdean Parish Council.
|
|
57.3
|
The
Principal Solicitor explained that
arrangements to appoint additional Independent Members had been
held in abeyance pro-tem as there was new
guidance from the standards Board
about standards Committees
which ought
to be
considered by the
Committee before any additional
permanent independent persons
were appointed.. Also, in its final form the
recent regulations had
indicated that in the event that
Independent Members of the Committee
could not be involved or were
precluded from the assessment
determination process ; it would be possible to call
upon Members of other Standards
Committees e.g. Fire
Authority. In answer to
questions of Councillor
Watkins he
explained that this would only be used when the
Committee was unable to
appoint an Assessment or Hearing Panel from its
own Members
and that the appropriate
contacts would be put into place with
neighbouring authorities in order for
reciprocal arrangements to be put into place.
|
|
57.4
|
The Principal Solicitor
explained that a further report
would be submitted to a future meeting
in order to
consider the new guidance
on standards committees and this
would review matters such as the period
for which Independent Members
would be
appointed to the
Committee.
|
|
57.5
|
RESOLVED: -
|
|
|
(1) That
the Committee notes the correction of
the errors in the original
Guidance
|
|
|
(2)
That Sections 1 to 6 which form the appendix
to the
report on Local Asessment
of Complaints be amended
accordingly to correct
any errors which have
arisen from using the
initial version of the
Guidance and that they be
approved in
that form ;
|
|
|
(3)
That authority be given to the
Director of
Strategy and Governance (as
Monitoring Officer) :
|
|
|
(I)
to make the necessary amendments
to the
arrangements and procedures ;
and
|
|
|
(ii) To
exercise the power in the Regulations
to make appointments to the Council’s Standards Committee and Sub Committees of independent person(s) who serve on
other authorities’ Standards Committees.
|
|
|
[Note: These was
all that appeared necessary relative to
errors in
the Guidance :
(a)
No corrections are needed in relation
to notification of the Parish Clerk, as mandatory
rather than
discretionary requirements
to notify
were included in the proposed
procedures; and
(b) However, Section 4, Paragraph 32 requires
the “not” to be deleted in the third
sentence.
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