a)     Standards Committee Annual Report 

b)     Scrutiny Annual Report 

c)      Member Development Group Annual Report

The annual report from the Standards Committee had been considered at the meeting held on 14 July 2011.

Cllrs Lawton and Hale presented the annual scrutiny report. Cllr Hale commented that both Cllr Yeates and Cllr Bevan had been vice chairmen of the Community Scrutiny and Review Committee at different times during 2010/11.

Full Council noted the report.

Cllr Quaile presented the Member Development Group annual report, thanking its members for their work during 2010/11.

Full Council noted the report.

a)     Standards Committee Annual Report 

b)     Scrutiny Annual Report 

c)      Member Development Group Annual Report

a)     Standards Committee Annual Report

Tony Elkington, chairman of the Standards Committee presented the report.  He highlighted the fact that the greater number of complaints had been against town and parish councillors. A small number had established a serious breach or had been referred to the Monitoring Officer for further investigation. However, there was no doubt that in some parishes the system had provided a means of provoking tit for tat complaints, which should not have come to committee and which had resulted in cost to the council and time wasted for committee members.

The abolition of the formal standards regime under the Localism Bill could lead to more powers and fewer controls for parish councils. It also posed the question of whether the council would retain a code of conduct and a standards committee and what sanctions would be available to the council.

He was in no doubt that the current system was overly bureaucratic. However he questioned whether the proposed single sanction of criminal proceedings for conduct relating to fraud was sufficient.

Currently all the notices were published to ensure openness, so that the public could see the complaints and perhaps ask why so many had been made by the same complainants.

He ended by saying that he had not tried to give any answers. They would be for the council once the Localism Bill was enacted. He invited questions.

The chairman thanked him for his report. As a member of the committee for four years, the chairman said that he looked forward to working with the council’s legal team and others to ensure an effective scheme to allow the public to maintain confidence and to hold councillors to account.

Full Council noted the report.