Agenda item

To consider a report by the Monitoring Officer (copy attached) to inform the Committee of the contents of the report.

The Monitoring Officer (MO) introduced a 2019 report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life reviewing local government ethical standards in England.

Although the review related only to the operation of the standards regime in England, the MO advised that the report and its recommendations provided an interesting comparison of the systems in Wales and England.

The MO informed members that the former Standards Board (England) had been obliged to investigate all complaints and the system had fallen into disrepute before being abolished in 2012. That highly centralised system had been replaced by the highly devolved system currently in place in England.

Unlike the Wales model code of conduct used by Welsh local authorities, councils in England were now able to determine the contents of their own codes. The statutory duty was for those codes to, when viewed as a whole, be consistent with the Seven Principles of Public Life (the “Nolan Principles”) and include provisions for registering and declaring pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests. The intention was not that the Seven Principles would be treated as a self-contained code, but instead that the principles should be used to underpin a well-drafted, practical and locally-relevant guide to behaviour.

The MO commented that the English system was focussed on the disclosure of pecuniary interests and lacked an objective test on what constituted a prejudicial interest. There was no requirement to register gifts or hospitality. The MO viewed the lack of sanctions within the English standards system as being likely to make the role of monitoring officers in England a difficult one.

Members were advised that the Committee on Standards in Public Life had taken evidence from the standards bodies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and many of the highlighted good practices reflected current practice in Wales.

The review had found that of councils in England that had received complaints, 83% said complaints had been made about disrespectful behaviour, 63% about bullying and 31% about disruptive behaviour. In response to a question, the MO advised that anecdotally the majority of complaints in Wales were about behaviour and rudeness and it was likely that failure to disclose interests were under-reported. This was an area that could be developed.

The Chair suggested that this point be debated in more detail at the next meeting alongside the MO’s compilation of complaints made. Independent member Julia Hughes requested that attention also be given to breaches of the Code of Conduct that were similar to the examples of bullying behaviour used by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in page 76 of their review.

The Committee discussed the issue of bullying and abusive behaviour towards women at often male-dominated councils. The MO advised on the range of equality actions employed to improve diversity which were promoted by a range of public sector organisations. He also reported that the Standards Committee’s role related to the Code of Conduct and that the majority of attacks on councillors came from the public rather than fellow-councillors, and that many of these were linked to use of social media.

RESOLVED that the Committee notes the contents of the report.