Agenda item

The Head of Law & Regulation referred Members to the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill and identified one or two relevant parts for the Standards Committee. 

The important issues noted were:

-       The Reform of Electoral Arrangements, allowing 16 to 17 years old to vote in local government elections which would be a radical reform for elections. Welsh Government had already legislated to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote in the next Assembly elections in 2021.

-       Corporate Joint Committees- this was a restructure of Local Government to facilitate more consistent and coherent regional working mechanisms and would allow joint groups of Councillors to deliver certain services on a collaborative basis. This was different to existing Joint Committees, which did not have any separate legal status and operated as voluntary joint arrangements between councils.

-       The initial services to be delivered via CJC’s were Regional transport and regional planning and development.

Some provisions would come into force before the next local government elections in May 2022, which meant quite extensive changes in Local Government, how they were managed etc as well as local councils. The public would participate in local democracy with the mandating of all Committee meetings being broadcast live. At present only full Council and Planning Committees were being Webcast from the Council Chamber.

It was noted that all Councils meeting rooms would have to be adapted in order to allow Committees to be webcast so this would be a considerable cost.

Instead of physically attending, Committee Members could use Skype or MS Teams which was useful for remote councils e.g. Powys Council.

It was discussed what would be done if IT failed during a critical vote and the practicalities of managing a meeting with a large number of remote attendances.

Three important points were discussed: 

-There was a duty on group leaders to promote ethical standards in political groups; the Standards Committee monitors how Leaders do this. Welsh Government would be providing guidance on this and it would have to be observed as to how this would develop. This was a statutory duty.

Councillor Hourahine stated that at a previous school Governor meeting they attended it was mentioned that Skype could be made available but then it was not allowed as a physical presence was needed at meetings and the cost could not rest with the school. The Head of Law & Regulation stated that this was a separate area of legislation. Welsh government could legislate on this however and it was a practical problem issue for the Council. 

Having the facility there did not mean people would dial in and people could avoid it if they wanted to.

-There was now a compulsory requirement for Councillors to produce an annual report, and Newport already facilitated this. This report would also need to be made public. 

-Ombudsman Investigation-They had previously lost some of their investigatory powers and so this put back what was lost. This meant that the Ombudsman could demand information from people and avoid claims of defamation both technical and procedural, under Section 69 of the 2000 Act.

It was discussed that the duty of group leaders was interesting and it would be interesting to observe the sanctions for this.

Questions:

Dr Worthington stated that the report was a very helpful summary of the notable points and the leaders issue was most pertinent. 

In practice, a group of two political members were not necessarily in a certain political group. For example, Newport Independents are on Council, they were not a recognised party political group but they have a group leader.

The Chair questioned that if the Standards Committee have to refer to the Ombudsman whose decision would it be to go to the adjudication panel. The Head of Law & Regulation confirmed that it was the Ombudsman and if serious enough, then it will investigate. If the issue was within the Standards Committee remit then Standards could decide what the outcome could be but if a higher body was needed then it could go to a higher independent panel, as their powers were higher. When an appeal was made from the Standards Committee to panel for example and a Councillor had a suspension for two months then that Councillor could appeal but the panel would then have discretion to increase as well as reduce any sanction.