Agenda item

To advised Standards Committee of the changes to the above Regulations.

The Local Government (Standards Committees, Investigations, Dispensations and Referral) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2016 were made by the (then) Minister for Public Services on 27 January 2016 and came into force on 1 April 2016. The Regulations made a number of consequential amendments to reflect changes in legislation which allowed for the establishment of joint Standards Committees. The Regulations provided for the referral of misconduct cases and dispensation application to other councils standards committees, where appropriate, and extended the current term of office of elected members until May 2017. Other procedural changes required prior permission to appeal to the Adjudication Panel, to filter out spurious appeals, enable misconduct reports and documents to be kept confidential until proceedings were concluded, and introduce a general ground for granting dispensations.

In terms of the regulations there were some technical changes relating to joint standards committees and how they should be made up. 

The rules to the publication of a misconduct report required that misconduct hearings should be held in public.  This had in the past caused problems as reports would be published before the meeting.  With the changes however, standards committees were allowed to embargo reports until the hearing took place.

With regard to monitoring officer regulations, an investigation or decision could be referred to another Standards Committee if it was considered that there was a conflict of interest.  The regulations specified how this could be done, as it prescribed the procedure.  This could then be referred back to the original Standards Committee for a decision to be made.  It was unlikely that this would occur on a regular basis.  It would however be worth discussing cases that the committee would like to refer in the future to joint committees.

Rules relating to the suspension of members stipulated that the period should not exceed six months or the remainder of a member’s term of office.  The suspension would end at their term of office but not affect their choice to put their name forward for re-election.

Discussion ensued regarding how the suspension would affect councillors conduct from a political party point of view with the public.

Councillors raised their concern regarding appeals to the adjudication panel and whether it applied to Assembly members.  This was put in place to avoid spurious or frivolous appeals that might delay the Standards Committee decision as mentioned above.  It was however felt that more pressure was put on the local member to adhere to Code of Conduct rather than AMs and MPs.  Councillor Fouweather considered that it should be challenged as it had a direct impact on members and the consultation period was not publicised well enough.  The document would have gone through the Welsh Assembly consultation process and publicised on their website. 

Councillor Fouweather requested sight of a copy of the letter from the Welsh Government in order to write a letter raising his concerns.

Agreed:

§  To advise Standards Committee of the changes introduced by the Local Government (Standards Committees, Investigations, Dispensations and Referral) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2016.

§  To provide a copy of the letter from the Welsh Government as requested above.