Agenda item

To receive the guidance on the Statutory Guidance Relating to Standards Committee (copy attached)

The Monitoring Officer (MO) presented the Statutory Guidance Relating to Standards Committee (previously circulated). The guidance was consolidated statutory guidance intended to support principal councils in meeting requirements under the Local Government Act 2000, the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 and the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021.

The chair guided the committee through the guidance; they highlighted the areas that were relevant to members of the committee whilst also taking any questions or feedback from the document and determining where the matters could be implemented to facilitate the work of the standards committee.

Independent Member Peter Lamb highlighted training and felt that point 2.12 on page 44 of the report pack reflected his feelings on training. It was as follows – ‘Training is a process, not an event. Councils could put together a member development strategy, which should reflect the need to keep councillors’ skills refreshed and updated. This should incorporate the opportunity for organising briefings for councillors on emerging areas of law and policy. In producing such a strategy councils should consider any guidance including any charters or councillor development frameworks, developed by the WLGA and resources and guidance issued by the PSOW’

The chair raised the matter of the duty of the standards committee to monitor group leader compliance with the duties; this was included with the guidance on page 64 of the report pack, with attention being brought to section 6.4 of the guidance – ‘As set out earlier in this guidance the standards committee should meet with group leaders at the beginning of each council year to agree on several issues, including the frequency of meetings between political group leaders and the standards committee through the year to discuss compliance with the duties covered by this guidance, annual reporting processes and issues arising from the analysis of complaints in respect of standards of behaviour’’ The Standards committee felt this matter was vital. A date should be arranged for each municipal year to ensure the standards committee monitors the group leaders' work and that dialogue can be had between both groups. The chair also referred to point 4.24 (page 58) within the report, highlighting the reasonable steps group leaders may undertake that would be useful for the group leaders and their reports being produced. Lisa has used these to assist with group leaders. It would be good to have these to ask Group leaders if they had considered them whilst conducting their work. The committee raised the issue that group leaders were busy, and ensuring they weren’t too busy was a delicate balance.

The MO responded to queries regarding section 15.0, Page 162, Guidance on multi-location meetings, essentially guidance on how the new system works, 2011 remote attendance was used. COVID has made the system faster; now, Teams and Zoom were used for meetings, internal meetings were held on teams, and Zoom for external meetings. The matter was beneficial overall; there were improvements in the conduct of hybrid meetings anecdotally. The diversity was also increased with hybrid working, which allowed people to attend as they wanted. Councillor Bobby Feeley stated that although the process of hybrid meetings had improved drastically from the beginning, she still felt that most, if not all, meetings had issues that could hamper the proceedings somehow. The committee also raised the issue of members not conducting meetings remotely whilst in a moving vehicle.

Section 15.8 of Page 179/180 was raised relating to agendas and reports, predominately referring to background papers; ‘Background papers relating to meetings of relevant authorities must now be proactively published on a website, not merely be available (although, exceptionally, if it is impractical to do this, they must be open for public inspection). This was a significant change; it involves the automatic placement in the public domain of specified documents, which may previously have only been, in practice, published on application. Councils would, therefore, need to think carefully about how background papers are identified, produced, and prepared for publication, as well as the transaction of paperless business in general. Multi-location meetings are likely to be paperless. Regulations now specify that formal information relating to meetings be published on an authority’s website, with the requirement of hard copy material on public deposit removed. The MO informed the committee that a lot of local authorities had background papers; he had raised the matter with the democratic services manager previously; however, he would ensure the matter was investigated.

After a discussion, it was –

RESOLVED: that –

      I.         Group leaders should be advised of the report's contents and remind all members of their responsibilities; annual meetings should be organised with the group leaders.

    II.         Terms of references to be kept up to date and correct.

   III.         The matters raised in point 4.24 can be used as a checklist for group leaders whilst they report to ensure they’re undertaking their duties

  IV.         The contents of the report be noted.