Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-102)
6 DECEMBER 2004
MR TIM
RICKETTS AND
MS GIFTY
EDILA
Q100 Mr Betts: Have you had any complaints
that that has not always been the case, that members had found
out they had been complained about through members rather than
procedures?
Mr Ricketts: It has been brought
to my attention on a few occasions. Sometimes it may suit individuals
to say this is the first time they have ever heard of this, when
a closer inspection may reveal that that is not the case.
Sometimes it may be that the correspondence from the Standards
Board did not arrive at the door of the person complained about.
It is isolated cases; it is quite rare for people to first hear
about it through the local press, but it has happened on occasions.
Q101 Mr Betts: There have been one or
two remarks that the whole process is the wrong way round: instead
of everything going to the Standards Board and then pushing most
of it back to the local level and dealing with a case at the centre,
if the complaints initially were made to the various local committees
and then filtered up to the Standards Board where they were serious,
that would be more effective.
Ms Edila: That is certainly our
view, which we have held from the outset, before the adoption
of the code and the current procedures. Lots of the issues should
be dealt with locally in view of our earlier comments about lack
of understanding or where you need simple local resolution—perhaps
a change of procedures overall—and also because of the large
number of fairly trivial matters. We believe the Standards Committee
does have a role. We have highly experienced councillors as well
as independent members who are able to manage the process locally.
They could refer to the Standards Board for England the more serious
matters.
Q102 Mr Betts: Is there a concern that
the public may not have much confidence in the system, and that
sometimes at local level there can be pressure put on to stop
serious cases being referred on?
Mr Ricketts: Initially there was
a concern with parish and town councils that if the standards
committees were the bodies investigating the parish and town councillors,
then politics could come into it, and there may be a feeling that
there was not sufficient impartiality for that to happen. That
has shifted somewhat now, and I think because of the time it takes
for the Standards Board to go through everything that they receive,
there is quite a bit of sympathy for going to a local level first
of all. We could even have a system of sorts where matters were
filtered even before that, and when matters could be subject to
some conciliation procedure. I am not sure how you go about doing
that. I believe that you should keep things as simple as possible—because
every time we do something it seems as though we are adding another
layer of people to go through, and by the time you have two or
three layers the public just think it is another layer they have
to go through in order to have something heard. I have a lot of
sympathy with starting matters off locally and then moving up
nationally to the serious matters.
Ms Edila: Can I address the reverse
of the question? Some of our experiences—and I must emphasise
that we do not have any empirical evidence to support this—are
that monitoring officers have indicated that people have approached
them to make complaints locally, but once you tell them that it
has to go to a national body, that is the end of the complaint,
and complainants are reluctant to take that information to the
national body.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
evidence.
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