To consider any other unrestricted business that the Chair considers to be urgent.

Work Plan

Matthew Mannion, Head of Democratic Services, took the Committee through their workplan.

He explained that two reports had not been included on the agenda for this meeting:

·       Effectiveness of the Standards Advisory Committee – deferred to the next meeting.

·       Update on Member Enquiries – this will follow on from a planned discussion at the General Purposes Committee.

For the next meeting there were a number of potential reports including on:

·       Strengthening local democracy

·       Member induction planning

·       Guidance on serving on outside bodies

As well as a number of regular reports.

Discussions would take place with the Chair on an appropriate final agenda list.

Matthew Mannion also provided a couple of other updates:

·       The General Purposes Committee would be receiving a report proposing to make the Constitution clearer that the Standards Advisory Committee has the ability to submit reports to Council on matters of concern should it so wish. 

·       Full Council the previous week had approved extensions to the appointments of four Co-optees (John Pulford, Fiona Browne, Mike Houston, Nafisa Adam) to 30 September 2025.

The Chair updated the Committee on a couple of matters:

·       He had provided an update to July Council on the last year’s Standards Advisory Committee Annual Report. He provided this through a virtual arrangement although the technology was not as strong as hoped.

·       He and Elizabeth Hall, the Independent Person (IP), had met with the Chief Executive to discuss the recent Senior Leadership Review. The Chair and IP were happy with the response content and tone from the Chief Executive and welcomed his engagement with their concerns.

Janet Fasan, Monitoring Officer, updated the Committee that the Council had run an initial recruitment exercise for a new Independent Person but this had not been successful. A second round was being planned and the Communications Team were helping draft a more eye-catching advert.

Finally, the Monitoring Officer was asked to report back on the question of what role the Council had on monitoring the activities of election candidates, especially independent candidates.