To consider the report of the Standards Advisory Committee proposing the introduction of a new Member Code of Conduct based on the new Model Code developed by the Local Government Association.

The Council considered the report of the Standard Advisory Committee regarding the adoption of the new Member Code of Conduct.

DECISION:

1.       Note the Update report on the new Member Code of Conduct and appendix.

2.       Agree to adopt the new Member Code of Conduct and add it to the Council’s Constitution.

3.       Agree that the new Code be adopted from Friday 6 May 2022 with training to be included as part of the Member Induction Programme following the local elections.

 (Action by: Janet Fasan, Director of Legal and Monitoring Officer)

Janet Fasan, Director of Legal and Monitoring Officer, introduced the report on progress developing the new Member Code of Conduct. She reminded the Committee that previous versions had been presented at recent meetings and that the previous meeting in July had agreed a potential final draft of the new Code. The only outstanding matter was to await the Local Government Association’s published guidance to see if any changes should be made following that.

The guidance had now been published and had been incorporated into the Code with links to the relevant sections of the guidance spread throughout the document. However, no substantive text changes were seen as necessary. With the agreement of the Chair, the draft Code had therefore been circulated to the political groups asking for comment.

Only limited feedback had been received (and any that was received was generally positive) and so it was now proposed, subject to the agreement of the Committee, to submit the final Code to Council for adoption.

It was suggested that Council should be asked to adopt the new Code from the May 2022 local elections to avoid causing confusion in the short period before the elections were due to take place.

Following discussion, the Committee welcomed the new Code and thanked the Members of the working group for their efforts in preparing the new version. It was unanimously agreed that the proposed Code should be approved and forwarded to Council for adoption.

RESOLVED

1.    That the new Member Code of Conduct be approved and forwarded to Council for adoption, with the date of adoption to be set at Friday 6 May (following the 2022 local elections).