Agenda item

6.1

The Committee received a report from the Interim Director of Legal and Governance which highlighted the activities of the Committee and provided details of the outcome of the Standards complaints received from January to December 2022.

6.2

The Interim Director of Legal and Governance explained that the report included the changes to the Standards regime that were introduced in July 2012 by the Localism Act 2011.

6.3

Although it was no longer a statutory requirement to have a Standards Committee, Full Council approved the retention of a Committee to deal with Standards complaints and adopt a new Members’ Code of Conduct and a Procedure for Dealing with Standards Complaints.

6.4

Two Independent Persons, as required by the Localism Act 2011, were appointed jointly with Barnsley MBC to assist the Monitoring Officer in dealing with complaints. It was mentioned that the Committee had recently appointed Karen Widdowson as an Independent Person and that David Waxman had been re-appointed to his position as Independent Person.

6.5

Members of the Committee asked questions and following responses were provided: -

6.6

The Interim Director of Legal and Governance confirmed no complaints had been made against a Parish Councillor from January 2022 to December 2022.

6.7

Following a comment from Karen Widdowson (Independent Person), The Interim Director of Legal of Governance agreed it would be appropriate to include previous years complaints figures in the table at section 5 of the report, so that the Committee could see trends of complaints figures throughout the years.

6.8

The Interim Director of Legal and Governance explained that 1 of the complaints which were reported within ‘Withdrawn or Invalid’ were diverted to the Protocol for Officer / Member.

6.9

RESOLVED: That the Committee (1) commented on the Annual Report; and (2) approved the report for submission to Full Council.