Issue - meetings

To consider the recommendations from the Audit and Governance Committee.

Consideration was given to the recommendations of the Audit and Governance Committee in relation to the Code of Conduct.

The Audit and Governance Committee recommendations were moved and seconded.   During the debate an amendment was proposed to refer the matter back to the Audit and Governance Committee’s Working Group to reconsider and bring forward a Code of Conduct which was supported by all on the Audit and Governance Committee.

The amendment was proposed, seconded, and put to the vote and declared lost.

Following debate on the substantive recommendations, these were put to the vote.

RESOLVED: That Council:

1 adopt the draft Member Code of Conduct, incorporating all amendments proposed by the Group Leaders, and

2 adopt the draft Member Code of Conduct Complaints Procedure to take effect following adoption of the Members Code of Conduct.

The meeting adjourned for short break.

To consider the revised Code of Conduct which reflects the Local Government Association model Code of Conduct for elected members, and incorporates best practice recommendations from The Ethics Report which can be recommended to full Council for adoption.

Jamie Hollis, Interim Head of Legal attended the meeting via Microsoft Teams and presented the report.  The report had been deferred from the previous meeting to facilitate a further Working Group discussion, however it had not been possible to convene that discussion within the time allowed.  The Committee was advised a course of action could be to defer the matter further, or to make a decision to deal with the substantive items within the report.

The Chair used discretion to enable visiting Member Councillor David Marren to address the Committee in regard to the Member Code of Conduct.

Councillor Mark Goldsmith noted that any agreement on this item would go to Council, and potentially Councillor Marren (as the current Mayor) could be perceived as pre-determining a decision on the item by speaking on it during this meeting.

David Brown, Director of Governance and Compliant and the Monitoring Officer advised it was down to individuals to determine if they were approaching matters with an open mind. 

The Chair noted all Members of the Working Group would be in the same position.

Councillor Marren addressed the Committee and began by noting that MP Kemi Badenock (the Minister for Levelling Up Communities) had responded to the recommendations set out in the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and agreed with five out of the 25 recommendations.  The minister had also advised that it was for individual councils to set their own local code in line with the Localism Act.

Councillor Marren went on to say that he was part of the Working Group assigned to review the updated Member Code of Conduct as published by the Local Government Association.  The Committee heard that at the first meeting of the Working Group, the code presented by officers had been amended in parts and there was some confusion about whether these amendments were fully explained to the group.  The changes were reinstated by the second meeting of the group.

Councillor Marren then read correspondence he had written in January 2019 to the then Acting Chief Executive at Cheshire East Council Kath O’Dwyer, all Councillors at the time had been copied into this correspondence and it covered:

• The disappointment of officers lodging complaints against Members and associated costs paid to external lawyers rather than using in-house resources;
• The acceptance that complaints needed to be investigated, but that if an officer makes a complaint against a Member that is not upheld, then disciplinary action should be taken against that officer because of the potential for irretrievable damage to relationships and any monies used to investigate will have been in vain;
• That potentially, those subject to complaints should be able to speak freely, as they could be vulnerable to further ill-founded and malicious complaints that would result in further money being spent to external lawyers;
• Councillor Marren believed that lack of openness would lead to malicious complaints and serial complainants, and that the current Member Code of Conduct needed urgent review to avoid being used  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20

To consider the revised Code of Conduct which reflects the Local Government Association model Code of Conduct for elected members, and incorporates best practice recommendations from The Ethics Report which can be recommended to full Council for adoption.

Jamie Hollis, Interim Head of Legal attended the meeting via Microsoft Teams and introduced the report.

The Committee was reminded that a Standards in Public Life report was published in 2019, that resulted in the Local Government Association (LGO) producing a model Code of Conduct (CoC).

The current CoC for Cheshire East was established in 2018 and this Committee took the opportunity to form a working group to review the LGA model code to assess suitability for adoption at Cheshire East Council. The Working Group had been meeting for a number of months using the model code as the basis for any potential revision to the existing code.

The report contained a draft of the proposed code and the procedure that sat alongside the code.  Whilst the CoC remained largely as the model code, there had been a number of amendments proposed by the Working Group that were considered appropriate for Cheshire East.

The Committee was given the opportunity to ask questions. Members of the working group expressed concern about adopting the CoC, and felt there had been significant work undertaken by the Working Group and officers and that there had been no opportunity to review the final draft ahead of the meeting. 

The Committee noted that there were comments from the Leaders Group which it was content with, however Town and Parish Councils within the borough were able to adopt the Cheshire East CoC and that in order to be open and fair, more consultation with them should be considered.  In order to address these matters the Committee was not in a position to approve the report recommendations.

Some of the Committee members did challenge this perspective and were content with the report, code and procedure in the current form and were happy to recommend approval to full council.

RESOLVED:

That the item be deferred until the 28 July 2022 Audit and Governance Committee meeting.