Meeting documents

Present:

Mrs Val Bracken (Chair)
Councillors Baines and S Quinn, Mrs Barnes and Town Councillors Carter and Milne.

Also in attendance:

Sandra Stewart (Borough Solicitor/Monitoring Officer).

Apologies for Absence:

Councillors Kitchen and Bell, Mr Berry, Steven Pleasant (Chief Executive) and Pam Williams (Borough Treasurer).

57. Declarations Of Interest

There were no declarations of interest submitted by members of the Standards Committee.

58. Chair's Opening Remarks

The Chair welcomed Town Councillors Valerie Carter and Anthony Milne who had recently been appointed as the representatives for Mossley Town Council on the Standards Committee.

The Borough Solicitor made reference to guidance produced and previously circulated a few years ago by the Association of County Secretaries and Solicitors which was a useful reference for Parish Council governance and communication arrangements. The Borough Solicitor would be sending a copy to the Clerk to the Town Council as it was felt opportune particularly for newly elected town councillors that this guidance be reissued.

59. Minutes

The Minutes of the proceedings of the Standards Committee held on 14 June 2011, the Assessment Sub-Committee held on 14 December 2010 (0.01MB)  and 14 June 2011 (0.01MB)  and the Review Sub-Committee held on 13 September 2011, (0.01MB) having been circulated, were taken as read and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

60. The Bribery Act

Members of the Committee considered a report of the Head of Risk Management and Audit Services which set out the Council’s updated strategy to implement the Bribery Act 2010 which came into force on 1 July 2011, including communicating with Members, employees and partners / contractors.

It was noted that the Act introduced four offences:

• Bribing another person;
• Being bribed;
• Bribery of foreign public officials; and
• Failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery.

The Bribery Act had created a new offence under Section 7 which could be committed by commercial organisations which failed to prevent persons associated with them from committing bribery on their behalf. The Secretary of State had issued guidance designed to help commercial organisations of all sizes and sectors to understand the sorts of procedures they could put in place to prevent bribery from occurring within them. Although the public sector was not a commercial organisation and technically not covered by the Act, professional bodies were advocating that the Act was applicable to the public sector and therefore the Council was ensuring that preventative measures were in place and demonstrable.

At its meeting on 7 December 2010, Standards Committee Members considered the Council’s strategy to implement appropriate measures to prevent bribery occurring within the organisation. This was supplemented by an action plan outlining the action to be taken. Since that meeting the Secretary of State had issued further updated guidance in relation to the implementation of the Act and the Council’s strategy and action plan had been appropriately updated to take account of this new guidance. The updated guidance still referred to six key principles which had been updated and amended and which were outlined as follows:

• Proportionate Procedures;
• Top Level Commitment;
• Risk Assessment;
• Due Diligence;
• Communication (including training); and
• Monitoring and Review.

Members noted that Tameside had already been recognised as having excellent governance arrangements in place. In the present environment where protecting the public purse was of paramount importance, the Council already operated from a strong stance where honesty, integrity, openness and transparency were key attributes. Therefore, many of the requirements identified in the guidance were not new and to adhere to the principles would require the Council to review and update existing policies and procedures in light of the Bribery Act. 

Members referred to the updated action plan appended to the report which had been produced as the starting point to this process. From this the Council would have to ensure that the zero tolerance culture and anti-bribery policies and procedures were appropriately embedded, monitored, regularly reviewed and updated.

Resolved
That the report and action plan be noted and approved for adoption.

61. Future of the Local Standards Framework

The Borough Solicitor submitted a report which made reference to the Government’s intention to effect the abolition of the ‘Standards Board Regime’ through the Localism Bill which was introduced to Parliament on 13 December 2010. As a result it was likely that Standards for England would cease to investigate complaints in late 2011 or early 2012 and would be formally abolished during 2012.

Ahead of the legislation, in October 2010, Standards for England received a letter from Local Government Minister, Bob Neill, setting out the Government’s proposition in detail which had previously been considered by the Standards Committee. In summary the Government’s proposals were:

• to abolish Standards for England;
• to remove the First-tier Tribunal’s (Local Government Standards in England) jurisdiction over member conduct;
• to remove the national Code of Conduct for councillors and the requirement to have a standards committee;
• to allow councils to choose whether or not they wished to have a local code or a standards committee; and
• to create a criminal offence relating to failure to register or declare interests.

The Minister’s letter also set out the transitional arrangements that the Government intended to apply to any cases which had not been concluded when the framework ceased to operate. Following on from this in November 2010, Standards for England Chair, Dr Robert Chilton, wrote to all standards committee chairs to inform them of the content of the Minister’s letter.

There was no information from Standards for England as to any transitional arrangements for the local standards framework although it stated that it would continue to work closely with the sponsor department, the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG), to ensure local government was kept informed of what they needed to do during the transition from the current framework and in preparation for any future local standards provisions.

The Borough Solicitor added that a full discussion around the standards provisions of the Localism Bill took place during the fourth day of report stage in the House of Lords on 14 September 2011 and full details of the debate were attached to the report.

Resolved
That the content of the report be noted.

62. Discussion Period for Members of Raise Issues

Discussion ensued regarding the possibility of Committee members undertaking further training. It was agreed to give consideration to this matter again when further information had been received regarding the Government’s plans for the future local standards framework.

63. Register of Interests and Gifts and Hospitality

The Register of Interests and Gifts and Hospitality were made available for inspection.

The Borough Solicitor advised that she was presently conducting a review of the information published on the Council’s website under Councillors’ profiles and she would keep Committee Members advised on progress.

64. Urgent Items

The Chair advised that there were no urgent items for consideration at this meeting.

65. Date Of The Next Meeting

It was noted that the next meeting of the Standards Committee would take place on 13 December 2011 commencing at 4.00pm with the briefing for Standards Committee Members only with the Chair at 3.45pm.

Chair