Report to Follow
Minutes:
7.National Standards Committee Forum Feedback
The Chair stated that he would present the highlights to the Committee and that
there were some minutes from the forum available, but they were not to be shared at
present. The Committee would receive the forum minutes in due course.
The meeting took place on 27th January 2023 with Mr Clive Wolfendale was elected
as the Chair with Mr Jason Bartlett elected as the Vice Chair.
The Forum will consist of all local government organisations in Wales with 4
monitoring officers in attendance at any one time from principal councils, a
monitoring officer from the Fire Service and one from the National Park Authorities.
There will be 2 meetings a year and the Forum will have members attend on a
voluntary basis and would not be imposing anything, they will be present to share
ideas.
The Forum then went through areas of what Councils were doing and Newport was
ahead of what other Councils were doing and the Chair confirmed that only 5 other
members who had attended the Forum were able to share any information.
The Chair stated that they explained to the forum what the Newport standards
committee did and not a lot of councils had reached that point. For example, Merthyr
Tydfil Council Standards Committee had only held an introduction meeting with
group leaders. This was also the case with Swansea Council. The WLGA received
the request from Councils around group leader support, so Newport was ahead of
other Councils in this matter.
The Chair noted that Zoom had been used which caused problems when logging in
which will be shared with the Forum as Teams was a much easier platform to use.
Michelle Morris from the Public Service Ombudsman was present at the forum to
give an overview of their role and they stated that they investigate complaints from
service users, and members of the public etc which is where the role of the
Standards Committee also fitted in.
From April 2021 to March 2022 the Public Service Ombudsman adjudicated 300
complaints and 250 complaints which were not taken forward.
A number of breaches involved a lack of respect for others and how Councillors
treated each other which made up 50% of complaints.
The Ombudsman are keen to be invited to future forums as they feel they can add
more to the forum.
The 1st part of the Penn report was discussed with not a huge amount to report, just
that work of the Standards Committee and summoning witnesses in the future.
The Members Annual report was also discussed with the All Wales Forum to do
something on this in future.
The Chair stated that they would share minutes of the forum and find out why the
minutes couldn’t be shared at this time.
The Head of Standards stated that they might not want to share it at this time.
Councillor Cockeram asked why was the Fire Service attending the forum and the
Head of Law and Standards confirmed that this was the structure in terms of
standards.
Agreed:
The minutes of the All-Wales National Standards Committee forum will be circulated
to the Committee in future.