Agenda item

The Senior Lawyer, Corporate Governance, introduced his report providing an update on complaints received under the Members’ Code of Conduct during the period 1 March 2021 to 30 August 2021.  The report also included an update on the draft Model Code of Conduct that was currently being considered by Kent County Council.  It was noted that:

·  Since the last report to the Committee on 15 March 2021, the Monitoring Officer had received six further complaints, one concerning a Borough Councillor and five concerning Parish Councillors.

·  The complaint against the Borough Councillor and four of the complaints against Parish Councillors were rejected because they failed the preliminary tests.  The remaining complaint against a Parish Councillor was currently under consideration by the Monitoring Officer.

·  The Kent Secretaries (Monitoring Officers) had seen and commented on an initial draft version of a revised Kent Code of Conduct for Members.  The final draft would be submitted to the KCC Standards Committee for approval in due course.  If approved, it would be circulated to Kent Borough/District Councils for consideration of approval/adoption.  Parish Councils would then each have the opportunity to consider whether they wished to adopt the Kent/Maidstone model or an amended version of their own or make no changes to their current Codes.

In response to questions, the Principal Solicitor, Contentious and Corporate Governance, advised the Committee that:

·  The preliminary tests against which Code of Conduct complaints are assessed were set out in Part 4.2 of the Council’s Constitution.  Complaints were assessed by the Monitoring Officer in consultation with the Independent Person against the legal jurisdiction criteria test and, if applicable, the local assessment criteria test.  She would arrange for an extract of the Constitution setting out the legal jurisdiction and local assessment criteria to be circulated to all Members and Substitute Members of the Committee and the Parish Council representatives for information.  In addition to this, all future reports would include a summary of the reasons that a Code of Conduct complaint had failed the preliminary tests, in such cases.

Members indicated that they would like to see the draft revised Kent Code at the earliest opportunity to enable them to comment in a constructive way.

The Principal Solicitor, Contentious and Corporate Governance, advised the Committee that in commenting on the draft revised Kent Code, the Kent Secretaries had referred to concerns expressed by Members when they first saw the LGA Model Code of Conduct.  However, some things that Members were keen to promote, such as more robust sanctions, would require changes to legislation.  There was due to be a consultation on what the Government was proposing to do in respect of the report of the Committee for Standards in Public Life, and Members would be able to respond when that was available.

The Chairman said that he would press the County Council for the early release of the latest draft of the revised Kent Code to enable Members to have some input.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted subject to the points raised in the discussion.

Note:  At the conclusion of this item, there was a short adjournment due to connectivity issues.