Agenda and minutes

The Committee is asked to note any apologies for absence and substitutions received from Members.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Whitmore (with no substitute).

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the meeting of the Standards Committee, held on Monday 23 July 2018.

The minutes of the meeting of the Standards Committee, held on 23 July 2018, were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Councillors are invited to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Personal Interest, and the nature of it, in relation to any item on the agenda.

There were none on this occasion.

Subject to providing two working days’ notice, a Member of the Committee may ask the Chairman of the Committee a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the Tendring District and which falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

There were none on this occasion.

To enable the Committee to comment on the proposed Independent Remuneration Panel and Independent Persons recruitment pack and to approve membership and delegations of the Interview Panel for recommending to Council appointment of the successful candidates.

Clarissa Gosling, an Independent Person, declared a personal interest in the subject matter of this item insofar as she was a potential applicant to be re-appointed as a member of the Independent Remuneration Panel and to be re-appointed as an Independent Person. She therefore left the meeting whilst the Committee deliberated this matter and reached its decision.

The Chairman (Councillor Heaney) informed Members that John Wolton, an Independent Person, had informed Officers that he would not be seeking re-appointment as a member of the Independent Remuneration Panel or as an Independent Person. Councillor Heaney, on behalf of the Committee, placed on record its thanks and appreciation to Mr Wolton for all of his help, advice and contributions during his period of office. Mr Wolton suitably responded.

The Head of Governance and Legal Services & Monitoring Officer (Lisa Hastings) then introduced to the Committee Martin Klaassen who had recently been appointed to the post of Senior Governance Officer. Mrs Hastings informed Members that Mr Klaassen would be supporting her and the Council’s Head of Finance, Revenues and Benefits (Richard Barrett) in carrying out their statutory duties particularly with regards to the governance framework. He would also support the Independent Persons and the Independent Remuneration Panel in their work and also administer the early stages of the process for dealing with complaints about Members. Councillor Heaney, on behalf of the Committee, welcomed Mr Klaassen to the Council.

The Committee thereupon considered a joint report (A.1) by the Head of Leadership and Community and the Head of Governance and Legal Services & Monitoring Officer which sought its comments on the proposed Independent Remuneration Panel and Independent Persons recruitment pack. The joint report also sought the Committee’s approval for the membership of the Interview Panel and to delegate authority to the Interview Panel to make recommendations to Council regarding the appointment of the successful candidates.

Current Position

Members were reminded that, at the meeting of the Council held on 25 November 2014, Council had agreed the appointment of Mr John Wolton, Mrs Clarissa Gosling and the Reverend Dr William Lock as the Council’s Independent Remuneration Panel for the purposes of making recommendations to Council on Members’ allowances. In addition, Mr Wolton and Mrs Gosling had also been confirmed as the Council’s Independent Persons for the purposes of standard’s arrangements. All those appointments were in place until the Annual Meeting of the Council in May 2019.

Officers were, therefore, proposing that arrangements be put in place to appoint a new Independent Remuneration Panel and new Independent Persons in time to make new formal appointments at the Annual Council meeting in May 2019.

Recruitment and alternative options

It was reported that, in October 2017, a request had been made to all other Essex local authorities to ask if any were interested in sharing an Independent Remuneration Panel. No responses had been received to that request and it was therefore proposed by Officers that a local recruitment process should take place.

Members were informed that, with regard to Independent  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

The Monitoring Officer will give a quarterly update on Complaints.

Quarterly Complaints Update

The Monitoring Officer circulated to the Committee the quarterly schedule, which gave general details of complaints received (both existing and new cases), without providing any names, and went through them with the Committee.

General Notes

There was one additional matter where a complaint form had been requested but not returned.

The Monitoring Officer informed the Committee that, in accordance with its request, the Constitution Review Working Party (CRWP) had considered the issue of potentially linking Members’ Allowances to attendance at Members’ training sessions. However, the CRWP had decided not to pursue this matter as it felt that any issue of non-attendance should be dealt with by the relevant Group Leader through internal Group disciplinary procedures.

Requests for Dispensations

The Committee was advised that no requests for dispensations had been submitted to the Monitoring Officer since the last update to Members.