Agenda item

To consider a report by the Democratic Services Manager (copy attached) for the Committee to discuss the processes and outcomes being achieved in respect of compliance with mandatory obligations for declaring interests, hospitality and gifts offered to Members and Officers.

The Democratic Services Manager presented the report (previously circulated) to outline procedures for Members to complete a register of their interests and to declare interests in items of business at meetings they attend.  It also covers the recording of hospitality and gifts offered to Members and Officers.

The Council had been developing its processes over the past year and proposed to report annually to the Standards Committee on how well they support levels of compliance in respect of mandatory declarations within Denbighshire.

There was a requirement for Members to consider whether they have personal interests in the business they undertake in their roles as Members of the Council.  The Code also dealt with the registration of financial and other interests, and membership and management positions held by Members which should be declared.

Provisions outlined in the Code of Conduct complied with Part 3 of the Local Government Act 2000 with the Council supplying advice and procedures to support Members to fulfil their obligations.  Initially, a form to register interests was included in the induction packs for all Members following a Local Government election.  The signed register of interests were held in paper form and were available for inspection on request.

Section 58 of the Local Government (Democracy)(Wales) Act 2013 which had come into force this month, required registers of Members’ interests to be published electronically for the first time.  The Council had been transferring the registers on to the “Your Council” section of the public website which contained information regarding the elected Members.  In support of the transfer to the website, all Councillors were contacted to update or confirm the information was correct as originally supplied in their registers.

Any declarations made at any meeting would also be included on the website. 

The Monitoring Officer maintains a register recording the declaration of gifts and hospitality, together with the information relating to the donor and recipient.  A description of the gift or hospitality offered, together with its value, the date and the reason for the offer would also be recorded.   Gifts, hospitality or other benefits etc., under the value of £25 were not required to be registered with the Monitoring Officer.

Denbighshire’s Internal Audit Team undertook a review of the declaration of interest and hospitality processes in August 2014 as part of their work on the Council’s Corporate Governance Assurance Framework.  It was concluded that reasonably good controls were in place for recording declarations of interest and receipt of gifts and hospitality.  However, Internal Audit found that processes could be more robust and efficient in the way the information had been recorded and reviewed which would ensure any omissions or errors made could easily be identified.  The review resulted in the new guidance and procedures being introduced from the second half of last year.

RESOLVED that the report was reviewed and noted and it was agreed to annually review issues of declarations of interest, gifts and hospitality.