All Councils must demonstrate high standards of conduct through the actions of all Members and Officers and as part of ensuring these standards are met it is required to have a Standards Committee. In broad terms the Committee seeks to ensure that the Borough Council and Parish Councils maintain the highest ethical standards in all their activities.
Membership of Standards Committee:
The Committee has an independent Chair who is Mr. Mike Airey.
There are also two further independent members of the Committee, Mr. Mike Hill and Mr. Francis Hayes. There are five Borough Councillors on the Committee, Councillors Brian Jones, Councillor Lawton, Councillor Lewis, Councillor Maddison and Councillor Newall, and three Parish Councillors, Councillor Valerie Whitby, Councillor Derek Dodwell and Councillor Maggie Beadle who represent the interests of Parish Councils in the Borough. The Committee is supported by the Council's Monitoring Officer.
The Committee is responsible for:
- Promoting high standards of conduct by Councillors and Officers.
- Helping Councillors observe the Members' Code of Conduct.
- Advising and monitoring the Council on the Members' Code of Conduct.
- Receiving complaints against Members and undertaking an initial assessment of those complaints.
- Authorising investigations to be undertaken in respect of complaints made against Members.
- Authorising steps other than investigation, for example, when a complaint against a Member is considered suitable for mediation or Member retraining.
- Holding hearings to decide if Members have broken the Code of Conduct.
- Determining the appropriate sanction.
- Dealing with reports and referrals from the Standards Board for England.
- Advising Parish Councils and Councillors on their Code of Conduct.
- Overseeing the Borough Council's corporate complaints procedure -pdf document
- Monitoring the Borough Council's Code of Conduct for Employees and Confidential Reporting Policy ('Whistleblowing Policy' ) - pdf document
Other Information
Other information is available from the links below:
Meetings of the Standards Committee
Meetings of the Standards Committee usually take place quarterly and are generally open to the public to attend, except where an item is of a confidential nature. The Standards Committee does not have an agreed calendar of meetings, instead the date of the next meeting is agreed each time the Committee meets. Table 1 below contains a list of agreed dates for the Muncipal Year 2008/09.
TABLE 1
Standards Committee - Assessment Sub-Committee
Standards Committee - Consideration and Hearing Sub-Committee