Agenda and minutes

There were no urgent items of business.

Meeting held on Friday 23 March 2018

RESOLVED – That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 23 March 2018 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

·         Disclosable Pecuniary Interest;

·         Other interests.

There were no declarations of interest were made.

Members considered a report in relation to the content of the Ombudsman’s Annual Letter for the period April 2017 – March 2018.

The letter summarised complaints and enquiries received by the organisation in relation to the Council.  The letters were published on the Ombudsman's website together with specimen data used to inform the Ombudsman's Annual Review letter.

In the past year the Ombudsman had received 12 new enquiries or complaints concerning the Council.  The Ombudsman had made 10 decisions within this period, details of which were contained in the background section of the report.

Clarification was requested on the detail of the 2 complaints which were not included in this report. It was confirmed that the Council hadn’t received the detail from the Ombudsman and it was likely that this would be included in the next letter.

RESOLVED: That the Ombudsman’s Annual Letter be NOTED.

The report provided an overview of the issues considered by the Standards Committee during 2017/18.  This included the following matters:

§     Monitoring complaints received regarding alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct

§     The Annual Letter received from the Local Government Ombudsman

§     Using Social Media

§     An annual review of Councillor development

§     Department for Communities and Local Government consultation on updating disqualification criteria for local authority members

§     Local government ethical standards consultation

The Committee requested that, with regard to standards complaints, future reports include a breakdown of parish and borough complaints for High Peak to enable a better comparison to be made.

RESOLVED: That the report be NOTED.

The Chair to move:-

"That pursuant to Section 100A(2) and (4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or nature of the proceedings whereby it is likely that exempt information as defined in Section 100A (3) of the Act would be disclosed to the public in breach of the obligation of confidence or exempt information as defined in Section 100I (1) of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act would be disclosed to the public by virtue of the paragraphs indicated."

RESOLVED - That pursuant to Section 100A (2) and (4) of the Local Government Act , 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings whereby it is likely that confidential information as defined in Section 100A (3) of the Act would be disclosed to the public in breach of the obligation of confidence or exempt information as defined in Section 100i (1) of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act would be disclosed to the public by virtue of the Paragraphs indicated.

Meeting held on Friday 23 March 2018

The Committee approved the Exempt Minutes of the meeting held on 23 March 2018.

Members noted the contents of a report regarding Complaints made under the Code of Conduct.

Members considered the final report of an independent investigation into alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct.