Minutes:
The Governance and Elections Manager provided the Committee with an update further to the Regional Meeting of Standards Committee Chairman and Independent Persons’, which had been hosted by Gateshead Borough Council on 9 October 2015. Both the Chair and Vice Chair of the Committee had attended, accompanied by the Governance Solicitor.
Durham County Council had requested that one of the items for consideration should be issues relating to persistent complainants. The Group had discussed the topic and there was general consensus from all delegates that there was little which could be done in respect of both persistent complainants and persistent offenders. The lack of sanctions now available to Standards Committees right across the country, meant that any means of deterrent was no longer available. On that point, there had also been consensus that from a regional perspective, all Monitoring Officers would seek to influence local politicians to try to appeal to Central Government for the reinstatement of sanctions.
Another topic which had been discussed had been the taking of action against former Councillors. Again, the Group were in agreement that there was little merit in pursuing a breach allegation against a former Member, though Councillor Shaw advised that one neighbouring authority was pursuing such a case as it was believed that doing so was in the public interest.
The Group had discussed regional training for Committee Members. It was agreed that when any regional Authority was hosting a training event, where possible an invitation should be extended to other regional authorities. The Group were also keen to facilitate some training for Independent Persons, which would possibly be provided by NEREO.
The Governance and Elections Manager provided an update to Members further to the Standards Training Session which had been hosted at County Hall on the evening of 18 November 2015. The session had been open to delegates from the county’s Parish and Town Council’s and the invitation had also been extended to local Council’s in the Cleveland area.
It was reported that the session had been very well attended and very well received. Three presentations had been delivered relating to the Code of Conduct, Registering of Interests and Social Media.