Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-74)
6 DECEMBER 2004
COUNCILLOR JIM
BREAKELL, PROFESSOR
RICHARD CHAPMAN
AND MR
DENIS WILSON
Q60 Christine Russell: Yes.
Professor Chapman: Without going
into detail, we had a case reported four months ago now. Since
then we have had a letter of acknowledgment and another letter
saying something is going to happen, but otherwise we have not
been contacted for further evidence, and as far as I am awareand
of course I am not part of what is going on behind the scenesnobody
else has been contacted either. So that one has been running for
four months and that is relatively recently,
Mr Wilson: As a committee we have
had little contact with the Standards Board, apart from the national
assemblies, which have been very useful: we have had a lot of
practical advice from them. Otherwise, I think most of the contact
has been with our monitoring officer and his staff. My understanding
is that the support they get is quite good but the only criticism
I heard them make was that it is not easy to get through to the
right person first.
Professor Chapman: When you asked
the question, if I am correct, you used the word "relations".
Q61 Christine Russell: Yes, the relationship
between committees like yours and the Standards Board.
Professor Chapman: I would agree
with the comments of both my colleagues here. I would add that
there are one or two other things as well one could mention. One
of these is, for example, the annual assembly, the big conference
which appears to have been very successful. I attended the first
one but we were unable to go to the second one or the third one
because it really is too expensive.
Councillor Breakell: Indeed.
Professor Chapman: It is extremely
important to pay attention to this because our most significant
work so far has been in training and advancing the climate and
culture of ethics in the local government. One of the best assets
to us is attendance at that sort of event, but if we cannot afford
to go, it again undermines the purpose of the whole exercise.
Q62 Christine Russell: Where was he conference?
London?
Professor Chapman: Birmingham.
Q63 Christine Russell: Some of the evidence
we have had submitted seems to point to the fact that it has been
quite difficult to get the public involved in standards committees.
Would you like to comment on that?
Mr Wilson: In being involved in
sitting on standards committees as independents?
Q64 Christine Russell: Yes, to serve
on standards committees.
Mr Wilson: Certainly in Northamptonshire
we have no vacancies. Our committee is three independent members,
of which I am one, and two councillors. We have had no evidence
of problems in getting people to come forward. When I applied
there was an interview and I think there were quite a number of
applicants. I do not see that there is a problem.
Councillor Breakell: We have one
member from each of the four political groups and we have two
independent members. We publish an advertisement seeking applicants.
We were not short of applicants: we got five for two posts. We
went through a selection process with interviews and we selected
two very competent members from the independents.
Professor Chapman: I am one of
the two independent members and I am very happy to be one of the
two independent members. We did have an interview system and there
were other candidates. But the question you asked related to the
involvement. I would like to think there would be more involvement
from the public generally. Nobody seems very interested outside
in what we are doing. I would like to think that what we are doing
is important in terms of democracy in terms of the public's interest.
It is a great pity to my mind that we do not get the attention
and there is not the interest in local democracy that there ought
to be.
Q65 Christine Russell: Is that a criticism
of yourselves because you do not promote yourselves and raise
awareness of your existence perhaps?
Professor Chapman: It is very
difficult to raise awareness of one's existence when the means
of communicating with the public is, to a large extent, through
the press but the press is not interested in us because we are
not doing things that interest the press.
Christine Russell: I thought they would
be very interested.
Q66 Mr Cummings: Not unless the press
is crucifying a councillor.
Professor Chapman: Yes. If you
have a case, then you have an interest, but if you do not have
"juicy" cases, if I may put it like that, then the press
is not very interested. If you look at all the meetings we have
at two-monthly intervals over the last four years most of them
have been taken up with consultation exercises for the Standards
Board or yourselves or for the Committee of Standards in Public
Life or any one of a number of other things. We are very good
at being consulted with, but if you attend our meetings and listen
to us going through the documents clause by clause, and line by
line, it does not make for very good reporting in the local press.
I am pleased to say that we have had no, what I would call, "juicy"
cases to attract the attention of the press.
Q67 Mr Betts: Does the Standards Board
have enough flexibility to refer quickly and effectively the less
serious cases to committees like yours?
Councillor Breakell: I think the
idea is it is going to improve, is it not? I am a member of a
hospital board as well and I am always delighted by the straightforward
triage system which we have in accident and emergency, as an example.
I feel we could have a rapid turnaround by a triage of cases received.
The fact that everything has to go into the melting pot and be
sifted through, taking months to be resolved, I think is unnecessary.
I would have thought that a very quick turnaround could be taken
with those cases which one could deem from first sight to be either
vexatious or trivial, with those cases being referred back very
quickly either to you as an authority, to your monitoring officer,
or else to the monitoring officer of an adjoining authority so
that they could do a bit of quid pro quo.
Q68 Mr Betts: One of the suggestions
that is being made to us is that it might be better if we reversed
the whole process, so that the cases initially came to local standards
committees, which would sift out the really serious ones and send
them to the Standards Board.
Councillor Breakell: So you form
your own triage, in fact, and do it yourself.
Mr Wilson: I would wish to disagree
with that idea. Our committee considered that and one of the aims
of the exercise is confidence, local confidence. We felt that
if we as a council were investigating ourselves, the public would
tend to lose that confidence. We felt it should go to somewhere
independent and then be referred back down, as it is at the moment.
The other issue is consistency, to make sure you get consistent
referrals down. If you do get a very serious case there is the
possibility of officers being lent on at the local level. I am
particularly thinking about the really serious cases which you
are probably familiar with. We felt the best way at the moment
was to go up, straight to the Standards Board, but have a quick
reference down. I am talking about the flexibility of the Standards
Board to refer matters down to the standards committees and, indeed,
for local investigation and determination. That is limited, of
course, by the penalties that we as standards committees can imposewhich,
as you are probably aware, is three months' suspension as a maximum
penalty. Anything that would warrant anything more than that,
we would see anyway.
Professor Chapman: As I understood
it, the question was about the Standards Board's scope for doing
this. As far as I can see, the Standards Board could easily now
do this with the regulations we have in force. I think the pattern
would be different in relation to different standards committees
because the political salience, if I may put it like that, in
different parts of the country varies from place to place. I could
imagine a situation where many cases could easily be dealt with
by the standards committee but I would also like to add that an
awful lot can be resolved informally without this procedure having
to take place at all. There are examples where you may say this
is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and a word informally in the
ear of one or two people can often resolve a difficulty without
it having to become as significant as going to a case to the Standards
Board.
Q69 Andrew Bennett: This question of
the naming of members, both as complainants and as people who
are found to have committed offences and as people who are cleared,
is it consistent? You are making expressions, but the trouble
is that those expressions do not appear on the record.
Professor Chapman: I think that
was a pause while we looked at each other to see who was going
to go first! This is not me speaking on behalf of the City of
Durham Standards Committee, but I can give you my personal attitude
to that, and that is that, I am afraid, if you are entering into
public life you have to face the fact that your name may be mentioned
in contexts in which you would prefer it not to be sometimes.
That is one of the facets of working in public life.
Q70 Andrew Bennett: I think we understand
that!
Professor Chapman: You do, yes.
So, thank you very much! I think, therefore, you have to face
that as one of the facts of life. It is better for people to know
they are being criticised than it is for them not to know when
everybody else knows they are being criticised. Therefore, as
I think you put it earlier, it is an aspect of natural justice
that somebody who is being accused should know they are being
accused.
Q71 Andrew Bennett: What about if someone
is found not guilty? As far as I understand it, at the moment
the Standards Board puts up the details of somebody who has committed
some offence but they do not put up the names of people who have
been totally cleared. Is that right?
Councillor Breakell: That is correct.
Q72 Andrew Bennett: Do you approve of
that?
Professor Chapman: We seem to
be going along that way. I have very little experience on which
to base a helpful answer, I am afraid.
Mr Wilson: On the website it does
actually give whether there was found no case to answer or no
further action would be takenand there is a difference
between the two. I think if someone is totally cleared, that does
appear on the website as: "It was investigated by the ESO
and the ESO found there was no breach of the code."
Q73 Chairman: If we are looking at when
the person being complained against first hears about it, should
they hear about the complaint before the Standards Board decides
whether to refer it for an investigation?
Professor Chapman: As far as I
am aware, the present practice is that they are informed that
there is a complaint against them, so they know. It seems perfectly
satisfactory to me that they should know at that stage. But that
is a personal view.
Q74 Chairman: You have not come across
any instances where that has not happened and the first time they
hear about it is when they see their name in the newspaper.
Councillor Breakell: No. The normal
response seems to be that when the complainant gets confirmation
that it is being carried on, the person being complained about
similarly gets a letter of confirmation at the same time.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
evidence.
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