Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Written Evidence


Memorandum by the London Borough of Hackney (STA 11)

  I write on behalf of the London Borough of Hackney to submit evidence for consideration of the Select Committee regarding the role and effectiveness of the Standards Board for England.

  The London Borough of Hackney places considerable emphasis on the importance of a robust ethical framework in promoting public confidence and in turn in enhancing our ability to deliver high quality public services. This submission reflects that belief and also the Council's experience as an authority which undertaken substantial work to develop and promote its ethical agenda both before and after the adoption of the Members' Code of Conduct in November 2001.

  The Council shares the belief with many other local authorities that standards of conduct and behaviour in local government are generally good and that local authorities themselves are often best placed to deal with issues of misconduct and poor behaviour. Local determination of complaints by Standards Committees could provide a far faster resolution of complaints to the benefit of both complainants and those complained against. The potential for the Standards Board to refer allegations to Councils for local investigation under the Local Authorities (Code of Conduct) (Local Determination) (Amendment) Regulations 2004 may assist in this respect. Nevertheless this Council believes that the initial process of filtering complaints to assess the level seriousness would be best carried out by local authorities with minor cases being dealt with locally and only more serious cases being referred to the Standards Board.

  In submitting this evidence the Council acknowledges that the Standards Board is at a cross-roads. Until recently it appeared to have been overwhelmed by the volume of work. Furthermore the relationship and interaction between the Standards Board and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has by no means been obvious to standards committees. The experience of Hackney's Standards Committee has been one of frustration at delays in the production of regulations and subsequent statutory guidance. Whether that frustration is the responsibility of the Standards Board, the ODPM or both is not apparent to local standards committees, but it is to be hoped that the Standards Board has now developed the capacity to provide guidance and determine complaints in a timely manner. Further to the above, to date the Standards Board has not been seen to act as a champion for those authorities that are attempting to innovate nor has it spoken against retrograde proposals. A relatively recent example of this occurred with the bar on common independent membership of standards committees and independent remuneration panels.

  This Council has been particularly enthusiastic in its work to develop the links between high standards of behaviour and high standards of performance. This was facilitated by the synergy that was previously achieved through Independent Members having common membership of the Standards Committee and the Independent Remuneration Panel. The work of one body informs the work of the other and the development of a common knowledge and practical experience of the ethical framework and of the remuneration framework had proven to be invaluable. It would have been of even greater significance in the future as the Council seeks to develop and extend its ethical framework to include partner organisations and community groups. Although joint working as opposed to common membership is not unfeasible it is not ideal and the separation of the two roles represents a lost opportunity. For the future we would hope that the Standards Board will be in a better position to defend good practice.

1.   The effectiveness of the Standards Board for England in promoting and overseeing the Code of Conduct

  1.1  The Standards Board's capacity to provide timely advice and guidance to Councils to promote the Code has been a matter of concern from the outset. The volume of work generated by the apparent reluctance of large numbers of parish councillors to accept application of the Code impaired the ability of the Standards Board to lead in promoting or overseeing the Code. The experience in Hackney was that the Council's Standards Committee had already implemented a work programme to promote the Code, established local mechanisms for overseeing its implementation and carried out a programme of training for members before the Standards Board was fully operational.

  1.2  The guidance and training materials that the Standards Board subsequently provided were welcome and were useful in helping to embed the Code, but their impact was reduced by the fact that it was not available when it was most needed. This pattern of delay in the production of guidance and advice has been repeated thereafter as regulations have come into force. At the time of writing it is not known whether guidance on the 2004 Regulations will be provided within a reasonable timescale.

  1.3  The Standards Board accepts that the Code of Conduct is a living code that needs to adapt and change in the light of experience, but has shown little evidence of being proactive in this respect. The Standards Board is likely to continue to struggle to live up to local expectations until it is able to apply greater resources to providing leadership in these areas of its core business.

  1.4  The Code has now been in operation for three years and its practical application has raised a several issues on which the Standards Board could usefully provide a lead. A key issue for Hackney, arising from a case determined locally, is in respect of paragraph 3(a) of the Code: "A Member must not—(a) disclose information given to him/her in confidence by anyone, or information acquired which he believes is of a confidential nature, without the consent of a person authorised to give it, or unless he/she is required by law to do so." The Council would wish to see this paragraph amended to include a test of reasonableness to in respect of a belief that information is of a confidential nature. Other Councils have questioned whether there should be a public interest defence regarding the disclosure of confidential information. Regardless of whether the Standards Board wishes to pursue these particular examples it does need to demonstrate that it is keeping the Code under review, engaging with stakeholders and making appropriate recommendations.

2.   The role of the Standards Board for England in ensuring local authorities adhere to a Code of Conduct and its ability to assess allegations of misconduct in a timely and fair way

  2.1  Once again the Standards Board's effectiveness has been hampered both by the volume of work involved in dealing with parish councils, by either having to, or choosing to deal with relatively minor cases of misconduct and by the delay in producing regulations governing local determination and investigation of complaints against councillors.

  2.2  We have no evidence to indicate whether the Standards Board is able to judge whether many local authorities adhere to the Code of Conduct. However the London Borough of Hackney has serious reservations about whether the Standards Board is able to assess allegations of misconduct in a timely manner, which in itself has an impact on fairness.

  2.3  We believe that there are three aspects to fairness: fairness to the complainant in taking the issues they raise seriously, fairness to the councillor complained against and fairness to local councils in helping them to ensure that their members comply with the code or are held to account for not doing so. We are unsure of the effectiveness of the process by which the Standards Board goes about deciding which complaints to investigate and which not to pursue further. The Council has first hand experience of the Standards Board being reluctant to investigate a serious complaint about a Councillor who had been convicted of a fraud resulting directly from his office. The Council is aware of other cases which were potentially serious which the Standards Board refused to investigate, although we cannot be sure whether such instances are commonplace.

  2.4  Conversely case studies accessible through the Standards Board web-site illustrate that significant numbers of trivial allegations are investigated often with a finding of no breach of the code or no action taken. The Standards Board must be able to demonstrate that it has a fair and effective process in place for sifting complaints if it is to satisfy any of the parties to complaints that it is behaving in a fair and even handed manner. At present this authority, among others, is not convinced that the Standards Board has the capacity to carry out this function.

  2.5  Our experience of the Standards Board role in respect of facilitating local determinations of complaints has also been problematic. Of particular concern has been the Standards Board's assertion in a case heard locally that the Standards Committee must be guided by their legal advice on interpretation of meaning of the Code, rather than by Standards Board guidance which was silent on the issue, or the advice of the Councils legal officers. This had the effect of undermining the autonomy of the Standards Committee.

  2.6  The role of the local authority as a party with a legitimate interest in the outcome of complaints has also been a point of contention between the Council and the Standards Board. This Council has taken the view that in cases referred for local determination after a Standards Board investigation, the authority as a corporate body has a legitimate interest in ensuring that the Standards Committee has the facility for proper advice from its officers in the form of presenting factual information and setting out the options available, as it would in any other area of its work.

  2.7  The Standards Board has taken the view that Council officers have no role in the determination of complaints other than to provide procedural and legal advice. This difference of opinion remains unresolved, but the Council maintains that to provide for fair hearings and outcomes it is essential that there should be scope for standards committees to request and receive advice, including reports on any aspect of a case short of reinvestigation.

  2.8  The timeliness of assessment of allegations of misconduct by the Standards Board is a further area of concern. It is clearly important to all parties to a complaint that the matter is resolved at the earliest possible opportunity. It is invidious for a councillor subsequently found to be blameless to have to wait for a months for that judgement to be made. It is equally wrong for lengthy delays before corrective action can be taken in cases where the allegation is well founded. Yet these are exactly the circumstances that have prevailed during the last three years. It is however premature to form a view about whether this situation will continue to be the case in the future given the capacity for less serious cases to be referred for local investigation or at least local determination.

3.   The Standards Board for England's relationships with: (a)  other regulatory organisations that support the ethical framework set out in the Local Government Act 2000; (b)  central Government; and (c)  local Government stakeholders

  3.1  As stated earlier in this evidence the quality of the relationship between the ODPM and the Standards Board is not clear. Whatever the relationship, it does not appear to manifest itself in "joined up" working or in the production of timely guidance and information for local councils, nor to date in the sort of leadership on an ethical agenda that had been anticipated.

  3.2  The relationship between the Standards Board and this authority is developing in a positive manner notwithstanding the criticism set out in other sections of this evidence. The Chief Executive of the Standards Board made a significant contribution at our "Raising Standards" conference where we examined the link between high ethical standards and the ability to improve services in depth. This has in turn led to improved liaison and discussion on taking the ethical agenda forward.

  3.3  Our experience has been that the Standards Board is increasingly accessible to discussing and dealing with criticism from local government stakeholders and is prepared to engage in robust debate. The contribution the Hackney's Deputy Mayor made at a major debate at this year's Annual Assembly of Standards Committees was an example of the Standards Board's willingness to engage with constructive criticism. This Council is optimistic that there will be further scope to work with the Standards Board on developing an agenda to drive up ethical standards.

4.   The role of the Standards Board for England in supporting the establishment and operation of standards committees at a local level

  4.1  Hackney's Standards Committee pre-dates both the code of Conduct and the Standards board. Even at the early stages of its development the Standards Committee formed the view that adherence to and promotion of high standards of conduct goes to the heart of local governance arrangements and that there is a causal relationship between high standards of conduct and the ability to improve council services. In the context of the legacy of Hackney's quite recent past and the relatively slow progress made by the Standards Board in supporting the development of standards committees it was important for the Council to make substantial progress in developing an implementing an ethical agenda over a relatively short timescale. It was therefore, not possible for the Council to sit back and wait for a lead from the Standards Board.

  4.2  The Council's Standards Committee has therefore overseen or carried out a substantial body of work:

    (i)  Dealing with complaints about the conduct of councillors prior to the provisions of the Local Government Act 2000 coming into force.

    (ii)  Development of a Training and Development programme for members.

    (iii)  The monitoring of complaints about council services and members' enquiries.

    (iv)  Development and implementation of the Whistle Blowing policy, publicity and procedures.

    (v)  Development and dissemination of the Protocol for Member/Officer Relations.

    (vi)  Development of the Procedure for local determination of allegations about the personal conduct of Council members.

    (vii)  Development and implementation of Planning and Licensing Protocols.

    (viii)  The conduct of Ethical Audits.

    (ix)  Local investigations (pre-Standards Board) and determination of complaints against Councillors.

    (x)  Hosted a major local conference on the link between high ethical standards and improved service delivery and promoted a consequent programme of work.

    (xi)  Sponsored the development of a web based Governance Manual.

  4.3  The majority of this work was carried out on the initiative of the Standards Committee and was led locally rather than by the Standards Board. More recently the Standards Board was able to provide a much appreciated input into our local conference, while the development of the Annual Assembly of Standards Committees into a vibrant forum for the exchange of views and experience has been valuable.

  In conclusion, notwithstanding the reservations expressed in this evidence, the Council recognises the important role played by the Standards Board and would wish to see it engaging in a continuing dialogue with those authorities that are willing to contribute to the continued development of local ethical agendas.

  Should you require any further information regarding this submission, please do not hesitate to contact me. Finally the Council would wish to offer the Select Committee the opportunity of taking oral evidence from the immediate past Chair of Hackney's Standards Committee, Professor John Gabriel and the current Chair, Stephanie Boyde. Both are Independent Members and between them have a wealth of experience in the development and implementation of the ethical framework and of local experience of the work of the Standards Board.

Claer Lloyd-Jones

Director of Law and Democratic Services

 





 
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