Councillor Conduct

Along with Councillor Ruth Newell, we attended training on Tuesday organised by the Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils. Although I had attended a conference on a similar subject not long ago at the same venue (Weston Turville) - both Ruth and I were keen to keep abreast of any changes in the law and practice on these matters. The Town Council has made a commitment that all councillors should keep appraised of the key topics that we deal with in our responsibilities as councillors.

The training half day was entitled "The Code of Conduct, Interests and Dispensations" and ably led by Julie Openshaw, the District Solicitor and Monitoring Officer for Wycombe District Council. It was a fascinating morning and enriched by conversations with the other participants including the Parish Clerk for the village where the Vicar of Dibley was filmed! (We did talk about wider matters too..)

Anyway, so what did I learn?

Councillor conduct remains high on the agenda for many local councils even if the numbers being reported/investigated are low. Julie Openshaw, when asked a question by me, reported that in the four years she has been at Wycombe District Council there have been only 25 cases of misconduct reported to her and not one of these has been judged (by her) to be in need of further investigation. This suggested to me that (for a variety of complex reasons, no doubt) that there is significant under reporting of cases where Councillors are over stepping the mark when it comes to handling their clerk, council staff or colleague councillors. I say this because when I talk to Parish Clerks, most have stories of councillors being rude or bullying.

I was reminded that regime of monitoring and tackling Councillor conduct has been made very light touch in recent years with the rational to make it less bureaucratic. I am left wondering, however, if it has gone too far in the direction of a laissez faire approach. The real sanctions that can be applied are very minimal and it seems the threshold for doing investigations is quite high.

The Nolan Principles remain centre stage but the breadth with which they can be interpreted is still very wide. 

I think Buckingham Town Council is very focused on councillors declaring any interests they might have and making sure that decisions are taken with due regard to these. I think we could be even tighter, which is a matter I plan to raise with the Town Clerk.

Dispensations are instances where a councillor or group of councillors have a declarable interest but for a variety of reasons may still be allowed to comment and vote. The law is pretty wide though including reason number five which states than an authority (the Town Clerk in our case) may grant a dispensation when he considers that it is otherwise appropriate to grant a dispensation. Yes you read that right... (But on the whole we have had very few dispensations granted in BTC apart from the standing one when it comes to setting the precept)

We spent some time looking at a particular case of where a councillor (who happened to be called Harvey - no relation I might add) and Ledbury Town Council had a disagreement. She was initially prevented by the Council from attending any committees and representing the council on any outside bodies. This was done on the basis of the Town Council applying their grievance procedure to her over her dealings with some members of staff. However, the law when applied found that the sanctions were not legal and the local Monitoring Officer judged that the Council were acting beyond their powers (ultra vires) as well as being non compliant with the Human Rights Act etc. I could write more about this case based on the notes given us by Ms Openshaw - but I will stop there. But I will sum up to say that due process must always be applied...

So, a fertile day and good tuning of my brain on all these matters.