Agenda and minutes

Meeting held on Friday 25^th November 2016

RESOLVED – That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 25^th November 2016 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

·         Disclosable Pecuniary Interest;

·         Other interests.

There were no declarations made.

Linden Vernon – Senior Officer, Governance and Member Support – introduced the review of Councillor development for the year.

There had been 7 seminars held, with 2 of them involving external trainers. 2 more were planned for the near future. Subjects covered included Planning, Awareness of “Prevent”, Scrutiny, Safeguarding and Licensing.

Ongoing support was being provided around the Members IT project and the use of the tablet computers. This had recently included the roll-out of the Modern.Gov ‘app’ being added to all tablets to provide improved access to committee reports. This process included group training sessions, drop-in sessions and 1:1’s as required.

Members expressed the need to monitor Government legislation from the point of view of Member training needs. The wish was also expressed that any training presentations should be issued via email to all Councillors as some were unable to attend the sessions due to work commitments.

RESOLVED – That the report be NOTED.

The Council had previously adopted a range of policies procedures to ensure high standards of ethical behaviour and good governance throughout the Authority. This was last considered by the Standards Committee in January 2013.

In July 2016 a new Code of Conduct was adopted for senior managers and this formed part of the Ethical Framework.

Appendix A to the report was the proposed revised Local Ethical Framework. Appendix B was the proposed revised Code Of Practice For Members – Gifts and Hospitality. This contained consequential amendments which arose from changes to officer delegations etc.

A Code Of Conduct training session would be arranged for later in 2017 for Members and Parish Councillors. Discussion centred around the growing use of social media and problems associated with it. It was agreed that this would be incorporated into the training session.

RESOLVED – That the proposed revised Local Ethical Framework be APPROVED.

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 25^th November 2016

(Paragraph 2 – Information likely to reveal the identity of an individual and Paragraph 5 – Maintenance of legal professional privilege)

The Committee approved the Exempt Minutes of the meeting held on 25^th November 2016.

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