Agenda item

To note the attendance by members of the Standards Committee at the North Wales Standards Committees Forum and City, Town and Community Council meetings and to receive their reports.

Independent member Anne Mellor reported on her attendance at the North Wales Standards Committees Forum in Mold on the 24 June 2019. She advised the committee that the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, Nick Bennett, attended and delivered a presentation.

Mr Bennett’s presentation included:

·         The Ombudsman’s new legislative powers relating to:

o   Acting on his own initiative without receiving a complaint

o   Powers to consider oral complaints

o   Considering private health complaints

o   The elderly, care homes and vulnerable people.

·         The difference between friendly banter and bullying with guidance on this to be distributed later in the year.

·         The importance of good leadership and mediation.

·         The Ombudsman’s opinion that the Standards regime was improving.

The Forum discussed the possibility of a joint Standards Committee, seeing this as a possibility but that further details would be required.

The Forum itself was to be renamed the Standards Forum for North and Mid Wales.

In respect of joint standards committees, the Monitoring Officer (MO) advised that merging two standards committees could be a viable option but merging more than two would probably require changes to the membership regulations to make them acceptable. He thought that there could be merit in joint working between standards committees even if there was no formal merger of committees. For example, the referral of a case to another standards committee that was better situated to take the case.

The 2019 report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life which reviewed local government ethical standards in England was raised, in respect of Flintshire’s use of the report to improve standards there. The MO agreed to look at Flintshire’s work for examples that could be useful in Denbighshire.

Committee members Anne Mellor and Julia Hughes had attended a meeting of Llanelidan Community Council held on the 2 May 2019 and provided the committee with a detailed verbal report on the proceedings.

The MO referred to information on dispensations previously circulated to city, town and community council clerks which he would re-circulate to them.

The Chair reported on a visit he undertook to Llandegla Community Council on the 4 February 2019.

Members discussed the important role of the clerk and the Welsh Government’s hint clerks could be employed by the principal councils. The Chair suggested that some city, town and community councils seemed to be struggling as a result of overly-forceful opposition from local individuals to one-off issues.

The committee had previously decided to try and visit each city, town and community council in Denbighshire once every 3 or 4 years and members identified the next councils they intended to visit.

The MO agreed to enquire (when circulating the advice on dispensations) about the language choice used at meetings to assist committee members in their choice of visits.

The MO reported that Denbighshire County Council was holding an annual meeting with the city, town and community councils shortly and he could give a brief presentation on key standards. He also agreed that the committee’s main observations following a visit could be sent to the relevant clerk and that he would enquire about the availability of any training opportunities provided by Denbighshire for city, town and community councils.

RESOLVED that the above-mentioned points be noted.