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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 60-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee
Role and Effectiveness of the Standards Board for England
Monday 6 December 2004 MS CLAER LLOYD-JONES, MR GORDON MUSSETT and MR MIRZA AHMAD CLLR JIM BREAKELL, PROFESSOR RICHARD CHAPMAN and MR DENIS WILSON MR TIM RICKETTS and MS GIFTY EDILA MR ROY WILLIAMS, SIR JEREMY BEECHAM and CLLR CHLOE LAMBERT Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 128 USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committee: Housing, Local Government and the Regions Committee (Urban Affairs Sub-Committee) on Monday 6 December 2004 Members present Chris Mole, Chairman Andrew Bennett Sir Paul Beresford Mr Clive Betts Mr John Cummings Mr Bill O'Brien Christine Russell ________________ Memoranda submitted by the London Borough of Hackney,
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Ms Claer Lloyd-Hones, Director of Legal and Democratic Services, London Borough of Hackney, Mr Gordon Mussett, Town Clerk, Haverhill Town Council, and Mr Mirza Ahmad, Chief Legal Officer, Birmingham City Council, examined. Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon. Welcome to the first session of this Urban Affairs Sub-Committee's inquiry into the Role and Effectiveness of the Standards Board for England. Could I welcome the witnesses and ask you to give your names for the record, please. Mr Ahmad: Thank you, Chairman. I am Mirza Ahmad. I am the Chief Legal Officer for Birmingham City Council Ms Lloyd-Jones: Claer Lloyd-Jones. I am the Director of Law and Democratic Services at the London Borough of Hackney. Mr Mussett: Gordon Mussett, I am Town Clerk for Haverhill Town Council. Q2 Chairman: Good afternoon and welcome. Would any of you like to make an opening statement or are you happy to go straight to questions? Mr Ahmad: Happy to go straight to questions. Q3 Mr O'Brien: It has been argued that introduction of a written Code of Conduct has given an opportunity for troublemakers to achieve political gain. Do you believe the Standards Board for England as worked hard enough to prevent this happening? Mr Mussett: I will answer, if I may. Q4 Chairman: Yes - and I should just say that if you agree amongst yourselves you do not have to repeat what other speakers have previously said. Mr Mussett: I will answer for my authority. Certainly the Standards Board would seem to have been not as prepared as it might have been to deal with vexatious people who were out to score points. Other organisations have had experience of how to handle these people who submit multiple complaints and I believe the Standards Board perhaps did not take on board the experience of those other organisations. Ms Lloyd-Jones: Certainly the proposal that Hackney favours, which is that there should be a local filtering mechanism before complaints go to the Standards Board, would allow local experience and knowledge of where there are serial or vexatious complainants to be weeded out at a very early stage by those within the authority who do have experience of handling complaints, either through the council's complaint system or to the ombudsman, or even complaints against councillors - which of course we used to have a jurisdiction to deal with previously. Mr Ahmad: It is the same from my perspective, Chairman. The issue is one of ethics across the board. Where there are open and transparent arrangements in place, individuals will use the opportunity to test the system and obviously to see whether or not the complaints are followed through. I think it is right to say that the Standards Board for England has struggled with the earlier years to weed out those frivolous and vexatious complaints to the extent that it should. Q5 Mr O'Brien: Do you think the aims and objectives of the Standards Board: confidence in local democracy and governance, have been achieved? Mr Ahmad: From my perspective and Birmingham City Council's perspective, I think it has achieved a fair amount of that confidence in local governance. I must, however, emphasise that that does not mean confidence in local governance was at a low level. I think generally confidence in local governance was high, but the independent aspect of the Standards Board of course has helped. Q6 Sir Paul Beresford: This whole procedure has allowed the nutters which every areas has to sit there and complain - as they did in the past, but they can carry it further - with vendettas between individuals, be they elected or non-elected or against elected. Really the Standards Board should be acting on these people more strictly than they are, should it not? Ms Lloyd-Jones: I do not have any experience of frivolous or vexatious complaints that have been made either directly to the authority or to the Standards Board in relation to Hackney members recently so I cannot comment on that. Q7 Sir Paul Beresford: You must live in a unique area. Ms Lloyd-Jones: I think there is a problem with the extreme delay that there has been in the first stage of the complaint process being fed back to local authorities. Therefore the local knowledge that we have, if it is a frivolous or vexatious complaint, cannot be fed into the complaint system sufficiently early in the process. I would also add in relation to your previous comment about the remit of the board that it is confidence in local democracy that we are looking at and therefore there does need to be a local dimension and there does need to be local input into the management of ethical framework locally. It is important that here is a national body which can lead and influence the way it is interpreted locally. Q8 Mr O'Brien: Do you consider that local democracy and governance are being achieved at this moment in time? Ms Lloyd-Jones: I do not think the Standards Board or even a local standards committee by itself can achieve that. I think, with respect, you may be concentrating too much on the issue of complaints' handling, whereas in fact the other half of the board's remit - in fact the major remit of local standards committees - is to deal with training, is to deal with giving guidance, issuing protocols and so on, in terms of leading local authorities to a norm of high ethical standards and good behaviour both by councillors and by local employees. Q9 Mr O'Brien: Taking into consideration training and lecturing, are we achieving democracy and governance at a high standard? Mr Mussett: You must see it as a journey: you are not at the terminus, you are some way down the road, and by the time we have the next round of local government elections experience will be there and you will be closer to it than you were when it was first introduced. Q10 Christine Russell: Could I move on to ask you about the impact of the establishment of the Standards Board on town and parish councils. In particular, what problems have parish councils had in interpreting the regulations and dealing with the regulations? Mr Mussett: The introduction of the code was widely accepted but there were a number of parish councils who felt they did not need to be adopting the code because they were already adhering to good practice. Certainly there were a number of parish councils which failed to sign up to the code within the time scale. Q11 Christine Russell: I do not now how extensive your experience of parish councils is but in the past parish councils have very much been a law unto themselves, not wishing to be controlled or regulated by anyone. Mr Mussett: I think there was perhaps some degree of that, and the audit and accounts regulations which preceded this code had been another instance where there had been resistance. Q12 Christine Russell: Do you think again from your experience, that the Standards Board recognises the difficulties that some parish councils have had with the welter of regulations they now have to adhere to? Mr Mussett: It is not just the Standards Board alone; I think the Government in totality has a problem in communicating its regulations down to parish council level. As far as the Standards Board is concerned, a lot of the onus for delivering guidance falls upon the clerk and the clerk in many parish councils operates out of their own house for two, three, four hours a week, and you have to recognise that you have the variation between the part-time clerk, who is overwhelmed with new legislation and changes to legislation, as distinct from a county council, say, where there is a wealth of people who can work on the regulations and analyse them. Q13 Christine Russell: What explanation would you give other than the workload of the clerks for the fact that proportionately the volume of complaints has been far heavier from parish councils than from other local authorities? Mr Mussett: Some of it is to do with training. I can speak within Suffolk and within Essex: although the local associations of councils provided training, not all councils took up that opportunity, so within any one parish the number of councillors who have been trained in the code is remarkably few. The other aspect of course is that parish and town councillors tend, in the main, to be non-politically aligned, so they do not have the back-up experience that a member of a political party might get, such as if they were a member of a borough council or a county council. Q14 Christine Russell: Is that another way of saying they are remarkably inconsistent in their views? Mr Mussett: I think it is another way of saying sometimes the political parties may have the opportunity to provide training and give experience to their councillors, but independent councillors, particularly at parish level, tend not to have access to that opportunity. Q15 Christine Russell: In your experience of parish councils in and around Suffolk and Essex, do you think the introduction of the Code of Practice is going to make it more difficult not only to recruit clerks but also to encourage people to stand for election to parish councils? Mr Mussett: Once the problem that we have encountered with frivolous and vexatious complaints can be eliminated, then there will be no problem in recruitment of parish councillors. The code will not present any problems in terms of recruitment of parish councillors. It is more difficult to operate within the code at a parish council level, because in a very small village the chair of the parish council is very often on the church council, they are very often the leader of the WI in the village, and they are very often on the village hall management committee, and all those things mean that there is a lot of declaring of interests and exiting themselves from the meetings. So it does make the day-to-day operation of a parish council difficult in some circumstances. Q16 Andrew Bennett: If I may come on to the role of the council officers, do you think as a principle that if someone makes a complaint the council officers should know that they have been complained about? Mr Ahmad: This is where the complaint is from a council employee rather than ---- Q17 Andrew Bennett: As far as I am concerned, it is where anyone has made a complaint. It seems to me that if someone makes a complaint about the way in which something has been done by a council or an individual officer, it ought to be almost like natural justice, that the person who is complained about should know the Standards Board is investigating. Mr Ahmad: I think there is a mixed view, if I may start - and I know Claer has a view on this. Clearly lots of complaints procedures involve preliminary investigation without necessarily causing any anxiety to the person complained against, so there is a logic in terms of why people would not necessarily tell somebody that they have been complained against in the first stage. However, I think there comes a time when you say, "There is sufficient evidence here that the person who has been complained against ought to know" - which is why I sought the clarification in terms of officers - should the monitoring officer or the chief executive, as Head of Paid Service, know about that scenario. I think there is a relationship issue between the Standards Board and the monitoring officer when they have received a complaint and it is sufficiently developed that they are going to be looking at it at a serious level, then the monitoring officer should be told about the complaint. Q18 Andrew Bennett: The monitoring officer but not the individual who has been complained about? Mr Ahmad: I am sorry, the individual as well should be told at that time. Q19 Andrew Bennett: And if it is going to be dismissed as frivolous, you do not see any need to tell the individual. Mr Ahmad: In terms of best practice, I think you will find there are quite a few national codes which follow that similar model and I, as a member of the Bar, have a similar provision there as well. Ms Lloyd-Jones: If I could add that I think it is absolutely vital that the monitoring officer is aware as early as possible about complaints because there may well be action which the authority needs to take which is not just to do with the investigation of the complaint. It may be, for example, that in a case of breach of confidentiality or misuse of resources or some such, there is administrative action which the monitoring officer, in compliance with our duties to uphold legal principles and so on and best practices in administration, would need to take some steps on, which would not interfere with the legitimate investigation of the complaint subsequently but which would safeguard the councillor's position in those circumstances. Q20 Andrew Bennett: In most instances the monitoring officer is the chief executive. Ms Lloyd-Jones: No. The monitoring officer is not allowed to be the chief executive because of the amendments in the 2000 Act. Q21 Andrew Bennett: At what point should the chief executive know? Ms Lloyd-Jones: Assuming there is a close working relationship between the monitoring officer, the section 151 officer and the Head of Paid Service, it would certainly be my experience that the monitoring officer would want the Head of Paid Service to know, particularly if administrative steps needed to be taken or, indeed, if there was a group investigation on the same facts - which there often is. Then the Head of Paid Service would be told, I am absolutely confident, by the monitoring officer. Q22 Andrew Bennett: It would be at the discretion of the monitoring officer rather than a requirement on the monitoring officer to tell the chief executive. Mr Ahmad: I know where you are coming from on that, which is that the correspondence from the Standards Board for England makes it very clear that it is strictly in confidence and private to the monitoring officer. I think the issue there is: does it need to be? You are quite right to challenge that. I would question and challenge that for the same reasons Claer has exposed, primarily that the relationship to the monitoring officer and the Head of Paid Service and the other statutory officer has to be a very close one by its very nature, and if there are, dare I say it, administrative or other quasi-political or judicial aspects to be considered at a city council or borough council level, then it is only right and proper that the monitoring officer is not put in that position of breaching a confidential requirement. Q23 Andrew Bennett: Mr Mussett, you were concerned in your evidence about the problem of somebody complaining about a councillor from within the authority on the question of that somebody being bullied. Do you think it is easy to define what bullying is? Mr Mussett: Certainly in the cases of which I am aware where clerks of parish councils have complained about members, the evidence of bullying has been there for all to see, both in the council chamber and without. Q24 Andrew Bennett: It seems to me that if you were an elected representative or a member of Parliament there would be a lot of occasions when on behalf of your constituents you would want to bring pressure on to officers to do various things. It seems to me there is a very thin line between putting legitimate pressure on and bullying. Mr Mussett: As an officer, I very often have to put pressure on officers of the borough and the county council, and if I know the line between putting the pressure on and bullying I expect members to know the line between putting the pressure on and bullying. Putting the pressure on is asking questions and expecting answers within a reasonable time scale; it is not, as has happened in my experience, having countless emails, countless public debate on the subject, all within a very short time scale. Mr Ahmad: Could I add that it is probably the nature of the parish and the city council. Claer and I both have in our local authorities what are called member/officer relations' protocol. Bullying per se is not in the Code of Conduct for elected members at the national level but bullying, victimisation, harassment are all key things which I have included with my standards committee as part of the member/officer relations' protocol, so they are not in a sense breaching the Code of Conduct, but if a member breaches any part of that protocol then they will be up against a standards committee and will be held accountable. Certainly over the last eight months I have had cause to do that. It did not go into a code of conduct issue but the member was brought up to speed in terms of what was acceptable behaviour and what was not acceptable behaviour. Q25 Andrew Bennett: Do you think there is a standard that applies to everybody? My experience is that when you are talking to council officials - and I would assume this is the same for councillors - you know that some are fairly robust and will give as good as they get and others will be a little unhappy at fairly strong exchanges with perhaps a few expletives expressed on both sides. Ms Lloyd-Jones: I think it is possible to give guidance which reflects local conditions. For example, in Hackney we have a member's inquiry protocol which requires all inquiries in the first instance to go via the director, precisely because the sort of scenario that you are talking about had happened where councillors were putting pressure on quite junior officers who were actually not robust enough to say anything other than, "Okay, I'll fix it tomorrow," because having a councillor coming at you when you are a fourth, fifth or sixth tier officer is quite a frightening prospect. So you can give advice like that which would avoid those situations arising. Q26 Andrew Bennett: Is that not a very democratic process? I work on the principle as a member of Parliament that I will try to get hold of the person who might be able to fix it and only when I have discovered that that person cannot fix it do I start moving up the layers, possibly to insist that there is a change of policy. Mr Mussett: We tend to work from the other way: we look for the person who can authorise it being fixed - because there is a world of difference between the person who can fix it and the person who can authorise it being fixed. If I had to put pressure on, the sort of pressure that goes on goes on at the director/chief executive level of the borough council. I might start talking to the cleansing superintendent, but, if I felt there was an issue from there on in, I would leave it and go up and work my way down the chain of command because that is the way it goes. You also have to recognise what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. Reasonable is expecting another authority to comply with its own written standards and expectations; unreasonable is expecting it to go beyond those remits, just because you want that, as such. Q27 Mr Betts: There has been criticism that to begin with the Standards Board spent quite a lot of time developing its own systems, putting on commercial events, producing glossy brochures and all that sort of thing and not dealing with the complaints it was getting. Ms Lloyd-Jones: I think you probably would have to ask the Standards Board about the initial time allocation, but, from the outside, waiting for responses to complaints, the first one that I am aware of took six months for us even to have an acknowledgement that a complaint had been made. It did feel as though attention was not necessarily being given to the basic service delivery at the beginning. I think we would all acknowledge, though, that things have improved and that the Standards Board have very definitely improved the time scales of the more recent complaints that have been made to them and are making inroads into the backlog. Q28 Mr Betts: Is that improvements since last year? The figures I have for last year show that their target was to deal with 90 per cent of the cases referred for investigation within six months and in fact they achieved 38 per cent - less than half the target. That is pretty awful, is it not, when people are left hanging around for that length of time? Ms Lloyd-Jones: Yes. Q29 Mr Betts: Do you think it has got better since last year? Ms Lloyd-Jones: Certainly the most recent experience I have had of a complaint that was made within the last two to three months is that I was notified straight away about it - which was a distinct improvement - so was the person complained about; and it has been referred for investigation quite speedily. So my personal experience is that things are better now than they were a year ago. Mr Ahmad: There is a pragmatic answer to this - and I am not seeking to defend the Standards Board here: I am sure they will be able to defend themselves on this. That pragmatic answer is one of logistics, in terms of getting staff through the process and trained and developed. I know from discussions with the Standards Board that things are improving and that they have extra staff to turn that workload through. I think, with fairness, it is also a recognition that the Standards Board were starting from a zero base: it was a new creature and clearly it had to set the procedures in place. But also I think what seems to have scuppered some of the development is primarily the magnitude of complaints from parish councils. I do not think anyone pragmatically realised when they were creating the Standards Board that that was going to be the scenario. Q30 Andrew Bennett: Is it very unsatisfactory that it takes this length of time. Ms Lloyd-Jones: Yes, it is. Q31 Andrew Bennett: If you are a shrewd political manipulator, in March you announce to the local paper that you are making a complaint against one of the candidates in the election, do you not? You can more or less guarantee that the election is over long before a small story possibly appears in the paper saying that the allegation was totally unfounded. Mr Mussett: Yes, I would echo those sentiments. Q32 Andrew Bennett: So what do you think the turnaround should be? Seven days? Mr Mussett: I think it is impossible to put a time limit on turnaround because you are looking at an allegation which might be easily dismissed or which may actually lead to major investigations. Mr Ahmad: Birmingham City Council's submission echoed that one of the reasons why there is a delay factor is because of the centralised co-ordination and the nature of complaints having to be filtered from a national body. I know the regulations have come into effect now which will allow the Standards Board to refer things down to the standards committee, but my committee is very clear that there is a role for local standards committees to be the first point of contact. I know that not many authorities share my authority's view on that because there are resource implications, but certainly the likes of Birmingham would have no difficulty in dealing with matters very quickly, promptly, to deal with allegations and things that just hang in the air. Q33 Mr Betts: One other issue has been referred to us - and one authority drew our attention to a particular case: an allegation was made about a particular act at local level and the individual making the allegation decided that they at this stage were not going to refer it to the Standards Board. Effectively, therefore, the matter is not dealt with and could be raised at any time in the future. Should there be a cut-off date, so that if a matter is not dealt with in a certain period of time the case is deemed to have failed? Mr Ahmad: The Standards Board, I think, have a running rule: anything beyond three months is unlikely to get the magnitude of seriousness that a complaint if it is really genuine and serious would get if it came in straight away. That is not to say that the law says three months; that is a local requirement the Standards Board for pragmatic and realistic reasons have imposed. I think there is an argument to say that maybe a recommendation along the lines of three months is not a bad idea. Mr Mussett: Certainly one of the cases within my authority involved an ex-councillor who was no longer a member of the authority when the allegation went in, so I would certainly suggest that there ought to be some sort of time limit after which no further allegations can be made about the act in question. Q34 Christine Russell: Earlier Mr Mussett highlighted either the inability or the unwillingness of elected members to take up training opportunities. What are your views on whether the training for elected members should be compulsory, particularly regarding planning matters? Ms Lloyd-Jones: In the London Borough of Hackney, we adopted a member training policy. I have brought the annual report with me which I am happy to leave for you to look at. Certain training is compulsory before members are enabled to take up their roles. For example, with planning and licensing, members in Hackney are not able to sit on those committees without attending ethical framework training and minimum training on the statutory framework within which they are operating, given by both lawyers and planning officers within the authority. The standards committee in Hackney in fact has oversight of the member training programme for all training. It therefore takes into account training which would have a compulsory element in terms of good practice and good governance in decision making generally. Mr Ahmad: Where there is a quasi-judicial type inquiry, which planning and licensing are, then members should have no difficulty in attending and for that training to be made compulsory. In fact the city council already insist in relation to planning, and obviously in relation to licensing when it is brought into effect in February, that there will be training given. However, if you wish to extend the remit of that question to just general training on ethical framework issues, then, yes, we certainly do provide training for the members, newly elected members - the invite goes to all members - but if you were to make that compulsory I think you could find a lot of elected members saying, "Well, I shall attend for five minutes and bugger off" - sorry for the non-parliamentary language. That is a scenario that may happen. I do not think it should happen but I personally fee that under that scenario it is more likely to be discretionary that will achieve the result. Q35 Christine Russell: Do you agree that for those matters you have identified - ---- Mr Ahmad: The quasi-judicial matters. Q36 Christine Russell: Yes -- that it should be. Mr Ahmad: Absolutely. Q37 Christine Russell: Mr Mussett, I know parish councils do not determine planning applications but they are important consultees. What are your views on training, particularly in planning law, for parish councils? Mr Mussett: Certainly training in planning matters is one of a number of courses which are offered locally for councillors. Q38 Christine Russell: Who organises this? Mr Mussett: In Suffolk they are organised by the Suffolk Association of Local Councils who are a sub-branch of the National Association of Local Councils. But it is a case of horses and water: you can put the courses on, but, as to being able to encourage the members to go, we have no stick with which to beat them to make sure they do go. In terms of, for example, the quality town and parish council award, there is a requirement that the clerk has reached a particular qualification but there is no similar requirement for a percentage of members to have attended training courses, Q39 Chairman: Are you confident the Standards Board understand the intricacies of planning decisions when they are making judgments about things that have been referred to them in that sort of circumstance? Mr Mussett: It is difficult to generalise. You will have seen in the submissions you have received that it varies between the different standards of ethical standards officers, so I think it is wrong for me to generalise. Q40 Chairman: Could I wind up by asking you about your feelings about the link between the Code of Conduct, if there should be a link, and the assessment of a local authority's accountability through the Comprehensive Performance Assessment. Mr Ahmad: Certainly I have seen some changes to the Comprehensive Performance Assessment, the key lines of inquiry by the Audit Commission. I have seen those. Claer and I have certainly commented on those from the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors. I think it has to come. There is no question about it. If the local authority is serious about improving performance, improving services, making sure citizens are looked after appropriately in terms of what they have elected them to do, then ethical framework is the mechanism by which it is delivered by those who are in decision-making power Ms Lloyd-Jones: It is an issue that Hackney standards committee has explored in conjunction with the partnership organisations, through the Raising Standards Conference agenda - and, again, I will leave a copy of this for you. The chief executive of the Audit Commission came to speak as well as the chief executive of the Standards Board for England. The theme is that high standards of behaviour by both councillors and officers leads to better service delivery. We therefore entirely see the connection and the way the CPA is going. I think the Use of Resources Service Block - which currently measures quite technical things like: Is there a code of conduct? Is everyone signed up to it? - does not go far enough, so I certainly welcome the development from the Audit Commission in looking at the relationship between service delivery and behaviour and we completely agree that that is the way that councils will improve service delivery, and therefore their CPA score, by having a robust ethical framework across their areas, not just across their services. Q41 Andrew Bennett: Is this not an element of local authorities having to do more and more training and meet higher and higher ethical standards but having less and less power to do anything worthwhile for their communities. Ms Lloyd-Jones: I do not think that is right if you look at the influence which goes through strategic partnerships. Indeed, part of the Raising Standards agenda that we had in Hackney was that we had a number of our partners there, health partners, the police, the voluntary sector partners, housing associations and so on, and our standards committee at the moment is being asked to extend its jurisdiction, if you like, through the voluntary sector compact and the housing compact with housing associations, so we are looking at a single ethical platform, set of standards, code of conduct across the piece. Local authorities using their influence in this way is very much welcomed actually by our partners because the independent members of our standards committee do have experience in local adjudications and there is, therefore, belief that this is a legitimate role for the local authority. Q42 Mr Betts: Does that cover the private sector members of local strategic partnerships? Ms Lloyd-Jones: Yes, indeed. Q43 Chairman: On that note, could I thank you very much. Ms Lloyd-Jones: Could I leave these packs for you? Chairman: Thank you. Memoranda submitted by South Ribble Borough Council
Standards Committee, and Northamptonshire County Council Standards Committee Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Councillor Jim Breakell, Chairman, South Ribble Borough Council Standards Committee, Professor Richard Chapman, Chairman, City of Durham Standards Committee, Mr Denis Wilson, Chairman, Northamptonshire County Council Standards Committee, examined. Q44 Chairman: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Could I ask you to give your names for the record, please. Mr Wilson: Denis Wilson, Northamptonshire County Council. Professor Chapman: Richard Chapman, Chairman of the City of Durham Standards Committee. Councillor Breakell: Councillor Jim Breakell, Chairman of Standards at South Ribble Borough Council. Q45 Chairman: Do you feel the need to make brief introductions or are you happy to go straight to questions? Mr Wilson: I am happy to go straight to questions. Councillor Breakell: That is fine, thank you. Professor Chapman: We are all very happy. Chairman: Could I say that, if you agree with each other, please do not repeat, but, if you disagree, feel free to jump in and do so. Q46 Mr O'Brien: Gentlemen, you all have experience in dealing with the Code of Conduct. How effective have the Standards Board been in promoting and overseeing it? Mr Wilson: I think the one complaint we have is the length of time - and that has been raised. In overseeing the code, it takes a long time for a case to come up, but, in promoting the code, I think the documentation they have delivered both to the standards committees, councillors and, indeed, the general public has been very helpful, in particular the website for a standards committee is useful because it enables us to look at cases and to use those as examples for training and as examples to councillors. Professor Chapman: I agree with the question of delays, particularly at the beginning of the experience with the Standards Board. I would also like to add that in the early times of the Standards Board our experience was that we did not get the sort of advice from the Standards Board we were hoping to receive. Things have become better as time has passed, but at the beginning, in particular, I think the Standards Board was suffering from inexperienced staff and, indeed, staff who were not necessarily the best informed either to be doing the jobs they were doing - and I could illustrate that if you wish. Q47 Mr O'Brien: The current situation? Professor Chapman: That has improved considerably. Comparing four years ago with today, we are experiencing a much more professional attitude from the Standards Board than there was at the beginning. Q48 Mr O'Brien: How long does it take to settle a case now or investigate a case? Professor Chapman: If you are asking about times for settling ---- Q49 Mr O'Brien: That was the problem you raised in the initial stages, was it not? Professor Chapman: Yes, the delays were as much in terms of getting things through the system. Six months or more was quite normal for anything even of a relatively minor nature. We are blessed so far in not having had any major complaints going through the system. Most of ours have been what I would categorise as minor, and in some cases vexatious, but, even so, they were, at the beginning in particular, taking six months or more. The other thing I would like to add, if I may, is that I do not think the Standards Board, and perhaps the ODPM for all I know, have taken on board some of the resource implications of the system which we have set up. We have already experienced that to some extent with the works of the standards committee so far, but it is going to be more significant as we get investigations and determinations being sent down to us from the Standards Board. Q50 Andrew Bennett: Has the Code of Conduct really changed or is it a bit ambiguous? Professor Chapman: You are asking me for my personal opinion now and I am happy to give it. Q51 Andrew Bennett: Yes. Professor Chapman: I do not think it is particularly ambiguous. I think it is fairly clear. I think we are unhappy about, I think, item 7 - the one that says that councillors have an obligation to report matters which they think could be matters for complaint and if they do not do so then they themselves would be guilty - because this stimulates people or gives them an excuse when they would not otherwise have this problem. Q52 Andrew Bennett: You think that one bit would be better out of the code. Professor Chapman: I would be very happy if that bit were out of the code, yes. Q53 Andrew Bennett: Does the Standards Board itself interpret its own code consistently? Professor Chapman: As far as I can see it does. I have no experience. Councillor Breakell: I do not think I have experience to answer that. I am perfectly happy with the aims and intentions of the Standards Board. I think its ideals are very good. Like the professor, we have a council where we do not have tremendous problems - touching wood! - but we have similar problems. I think delay was one of the features which we put in the written statement in the first place. Q54 Andrew Bennett: And they are consistent in that: there is delay for everybody! Councillor Breakell: Consistent on delay, certainly. Without a doubt. Mr Wilson: On delays, the longest we have had was two years - and that will be settled hopefully in January - but I think we have had a later case which went a lot quicker. Q55 Andrew Bennett: I am tempted to ask of the case which took years, if it was a guilty or not guilty finding. Mr Wilson: I have said it will be determined in January. But that is a long time for a councillor to be under suspicion. I think it is a problem not only for the councillor but it is a problem for the person who complained, and it is also a problem for his party and for the public as well. I think it really needs to be addressed to get these cases seen to a lot quicker than they have been in the past. Professor Chapman: So far we have concentrated on delays in regard to cases because that is the way it has turned out in the questions we were being asked, but I would like to mention that there have been delays of other sorts as well, which are at least as serious and perhaps more serious. This is coming up to my fourth year. I was appointed as an independent member at the beginning of this experience and I have two more meetings to go before the end of my term of office. The Standards Board - and I agree with the Standards Board - recommend that you should not carry on for longer than four years. During my experience we would not have had any investigations dealt with locally or determinations dealt with locally - and looking back, this is a bit of a surprise, compared with what we had. But the delays I would like to draw your attention to are delays in introducing things like regulations under section 66 of the Act, because the serious fact is that if you continue to have the delays we experience in regard to that and other similar matters then it brings the whole system of democracy, the whole structure we have set up, into a bit of disrepute. If you have these agencies, the Standards Board, the ODPM, the standards committees and so on, and you cannot carry on doing what you are meant to be doing in accordance with the 2000 Act, then the whole thing becomes a little bit of a farce. Q56 Andrew Bennett: Whose fault is it: the Standards Board that they did not get the regulations out or ODPM? Professor Chapman: It is very difficult for me to say assertively, but, from asking questions - and we are not beyond asking questions in the City of Durham, may I say: we have asked questions as far as we can every time we have been frustrated - it seems to be that the ODPM was unable to produce the goods for the Standards Board to give us the advice on. From my point of view I would say that, if I had the power, I would be going along to the Standards Board, banging on the door and saying, "Why was the chief executive officer not going down to Whitehall and banging on the door of the ODPM?" But that is my personal view. Chairman: We do not know that he was not. Q57 Mr Betts: The submission from Durham Standards Committee made reference to clause 7 and said it should not be there. Why should there not be that requirement? If one councillor has seen something wrong being done by another councillor, you cannot expect the individual to turn their backs on it, pretend it did not happen, and decide it is not worthy of being reported Professor Chapman: No, I would come back to that and say I can take an extreme position in the way that you appear to be taking a more extreme position than the case I put. At the end of the day, councillors have to exercise judgment. If they do not exercise judgments and carry on according to the letter of everything just because that is a convenient opportunity to make a case, then, again, the thing goes into disrepute. I think people must use common sense. They must exercise their judgment and they do not necessarily have to follow rules. If you have a rule for everything in life, then that is most unfortunate in my opinion. Q58 Mr Betts: Coming on to the issue of regulations, a lot of guidance has been issued on these matters. Has that been effectively communicated? Is it easy to understand? Mr Wilson: From the point of view of our council and the standards committee, yes, it has been communicated quite well. The instructions or the guidance on local determination committees and dual-hatted committee members are particularly good. The standards committee can set out the procedure for a local hearing and can give advice on lobbying of dual-hatted members. I have not fully read the new one on local investigations, but I know that is out on the website. There, again, I would say that all these publications are very easily available on their website, very easy to access and very easy to read. Q59 Christine Russell: Professor Chapman just gave us some good constructive criticism about the early days following the establishment of the Standards Board and the standards committees. How would you summarise the relationship today, four years on, between the Standards Board and the standards committees? Professor Chapman: On the question of delays? Q60 Christine Russell: Yes. Professor Chapman: Without going into detail, I had to report a case four months ago now. Since then I have had a letter of acknowledgment and another letter saying something is going to happen, but otherwise I have not been contacted for further evidence, and as far as I am aware - and of course I am not part of what is going on behind the scenes - nobody 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 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 office, or else to the monitoring office 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 impose - which, 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 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, please, thank you very much! I think, therefore, you have to face that that is 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 taken - and 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. Memorandum submitted by National Association of Local
Councils and Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Tim Ricketts, Head of Legal Services, National Association for Local Councils, and Ms Gifty Edila, President, Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors, examined. Q75 Chairman: Good afternoon. I would be grateful if you could give your names for our record. Ms Edila: I am Gifty Edila, President of the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors. Mr Ricketts: My name is Tim Ricketts. I am Head of Legal Services at the National Association of Local Councils. Q76 Chairman: Would you like to make a brief statement before we start or are you happy to go straight to questions? Ms Edila: Perhaps I may say a few words. First, I would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity to submit our views about the Standards Board in writing and certainly for the further invitation to come here to clarify some of the issues that we have raised and commented upon. Perhaps by way of opening I could say that my association certainly does have a very good partnership with the Standards Board for England in so far as promoting high standards in public office. Our submission has clearly indicated that we certainly do not perceive a major problem amongst councillors and local government. However, we wholeheartedly endorse the need for a code to highlight and certainly to promote high standards as required. By and large, from our point of view, it is working. We have highlighted certain areas of weakness, in terms of challenges that we have faced around things like declarations of interest, whistle blowing and a number of other general points that we have raised, and I would be happy to address the Committee on any of those issues in which you may be interested Q77 Mr Betts: It has been argued that the introduction of a written code of conduct has given an opportunity for troublemakers to achieve political gain. Do you believe that the Standards Board for England has worked hard enough to prevent this happening? Mr Ricketts: With parish and town councils it almost goes a bit further than that because generally they do not tend to be political creatures. You would not see them as being split between the different parties, as you would find a principal authority. With parish and town councils there is certainly an axe to grind, and it tends to be within the community rather than for political purposes. That does happen, and I am sure the Standards Board would bear that out. There was an additional difficulty when the code was introduced in that in the first tier of our democratic structure, that is parish and town councils, there is no equivalent of the local government ombudsman, so there is no route for members of the public to bring cases of mal-administration to an independent party to adjudicate on. When the code was first introduced, many members of the community that were represented by their parish and town council saw this as an opportunity to bring cases of mal-administration to the notice of the Standards Board as well as alleged complaints against councillors. There has been a certain mish-mash of matters brought to the Standards Board, certainly by people with an axe to grind and people who think that this is a viable way to bring matters of mal-administration to the notice of somebody outside of the community, but also of course there are genuine complaints under the code of conduct. Q78 Mr Betts: Ought there to be some sort of penalty for people who bring vexatious complaints and cause a great deal of aggro and bung the system up so that it does not work properly? Is there something you can do about it? Mr Ricketts: I am sure there are many facets of public life where you would like to be able to apply that to vexatious people. Again, being a tier that is very close to the community, our parish and town councils have their fair share of people who have bees in their bonnets about certain issues that they want to keep on raising. At this time I would stay clear of producing a penalty as such because we are trying to introduce a system where the processes that we are looking at are transparent. In order for those processes to be transparent, you have to accept that there will be a certain amount of vexatious behaviour by some people who will want to bring matters repeatedly to people's notice. I agree that it can be a problem. I would fall short of saying we should be penalising people for making those requests, thereby preventing people from bringing genuine complaints forward. Q79 Mr O'Brien: Do you have a view on the guidance given to standards committees about their establishment and operation? Do you think it is adequate? Ms Edila: Certainly the guidance that has been issued so far we feel has been very helpful. It comes on a timely basis. The Standards Board tends to engage in access in working through the key issues contained within the guidance to ensure that it is relevant to our local experiences. Clearly, there will be occasions when we may well take a different view on some legal interpretations, and we tend to have a healthy useful dialogue on those. Q80 Mr O'Brien: You do not see any problems with the advice and guidance given, and think it is adequate. Ms Edila: Generally we would say it is adequate. In areas where we do have issues we do raise them. We have had one recently on dual-hat, a lobby, and we are talking with the Standards Board about ways to improve some of the guidance and information around there. Mr Ricketts: I agree with those sentiments. I should add that the Standards Board also publishes a newsletter aimed directly at parish and town councils, which is extremely useful. The website of the Standards Board is a good source of information for parish and town councils. The only sticking point for that is that not all parish and town councils have access to the Internet, but that may be a matter for outside of this particular meeting. The information is there, and generally it is very well accepted. Q81 Christine Russell: What more can the Standards Board do to communicate with town and parish councils? Obviously it you put more on the Internet, that will be an answer. Mr Ricketts: I think so. There is a move to now and again having some regional seminars with parish and town councils. Without wanting to number-crunch, there are 8,500 parish and town councils and some 80,000 councillors. Any national body trying to accommodate all those people faces a quite daunting task, and the Standards Board has done well to address that. However, perhaps if we looked at some regional training structure whereby parish and town councils in a certain area could come together on an annual basis or something like that, I am sure that would be very welcome. Q82 Christine Russell: At what sort of level do you think that could be organised most effectively - perhaps at county level rather than regional level? Mr Ricketts: County level would be appropriate. I do not know whether this is the right juncture to mention it, but one of the difficulties we find, although it varies across the country, is that while standards committees themselves have a duty under the 2000 Act to provide training to parish and town councillors, the implementation of that training is good in some areas but very poor in others. I do not want to state the obvious, but ----- Q83 Christine Russell: Are there league tables to demonstrate that? Mr Ricketts: I am afraid there is not a league table; I can only give you personal experience. I do not have those kinds of figures, but the input I get from colleagues in county associations is that it does vary immensely around the country. I am sure that as far as the dissemination of advice and training from the standards point of view is concerned, that would be greatly assisted if standards committees were able, be it by resource or whatever, to have the information to provide that training. The whole training thing would be a lot easier for the Standards Board. Q84 Christine Russell: Earlier you made an interesting observation that this huge volume of complaints that has emanated since the establishment of the Standards Board, particularly regarding parish councils, is perhaps explained by the fact that there is no ombudsman in office in parish councils. Ms Edila, would you go along with that explanation, or do you have other explanations as to why there has been a huge volume of complaints about parish councils or councillors? Ms Edila: I would not necessarily say that the lack of access to an ombudsman is the primary reason for that. When the code of conduct was being adopted and the Standards Board being set up, the monitoring officers locally did raise the issue about the large volume of complaints likely to be received, and whether the Board would be able to manage. From my experience, that is clearly because there is a degree of misunderstanding about the role of members in service delivery, and that would invariably lead to complaints being made. Q85 Christine Russell: Why should that apply to parish councillors more than to district councillors or county councillors or any other councillor? Ms Edila: Some of the experiences that my members, the monitoring officers, have had, at the metropolitan, unitary London level, is that there is a much greater awareness and promotion of the ethical framework amongst the members. Q86 Christine Russell: Are you saying there is more corruptness at the parish level than there is at the metropolitan level in ----- Ms Edila: Not at all. Q87 Christine Russell: What are you trying to say? Ms Edila: The understanding amongst those who are complaining about the behaviour of parish councillors ----- Q88 Christine Russell: So people living in rural areas are more ignorant of procedures of local government - is that what you are saying? I am trying to pin it down. Ms Edila: That is absolutely fine. It is the level of information available about the way things operate, which perhaps may not be as open in terms of access to information. If you take the London level, members of the public are attending council meetings and are aware of the way things operate. We have had difficulties in promoting that more locally. We have had more resistance to signing up to the code of conduct, which has led to far more complaints at that level. There have been a lot of issues around declarations of interest and a willingness to accept obligations to declare. They have been challenging issues, rather than any real corrupt practice or failure to comply. It is simply the lack of awareness and lack of understanding which is where I think more work needs to be done. Q89 Christine Russell: Where do you point the finger of blame - at the people doing the complaining, or the people being complained about? Ms Edila: I would say that we all had a responsibility, as members and officers within local government, to seek to highlight and address some of those issues to raise awareness. I would certainly not say necessarily it was a problem for those who are complaining, because if there is a greater understanding of the process ----- Q90 Christine Russell: So it is not a problem with the parish councillors and it is not a problem with the local people who are alleging complaints; the problem is with local officials who are not explaining well enough what the code of practice is. Ms Edila: I believe we can do more work. Certainly my association is looking at developing things like corporate governance as a step in the right direction, to try and raise awareness of the obligations, because that is missing; there is a lack of understanding that there is a clear obligation to comply with the code. Mr Ricketts: Can I address the number of complaints issue? Quite often we hear about the huge volume of complaints about parish and town councils, but it is disproportionate with all those kinds of words. The figures do not really demonstrate that. At the end of the last financial year the Standards Board received just over 3,000 complaints about parish and town councils, and they investigated 29 per cent of those, so roughly 1,000, in relation to 60 per cent of which no further action was taken. In 20 per cent there was no evidence of breach, and in relation to 20 per cent some action was taken as a result of the complaint. Although that is number-crunching, you start off potentially with 80,000 people who could be subject to a complaint from a member of the public, but when you talk about a thousand being investigated more than half of which had no further action, I am not sure that we are talking about disproportionality or a huge number. We are starting off with a huge number in the first place. It may be that the Standards Board and other associated bodies quite understandably did not appreciate the number of local authorities that they would be dealing with and the potential number of complaints that could come forward; but if we use words like "disproportionate" and "huge" it may give a slightly wrong kilter to what is happening. Q91 Chairman: You mentioned earlier that leaders in parish councils or individuals in parish councils could be involved in all sorts of different activities. Is it not also a concern that in quite small communities you get a lot of people related to other people, so it might be a worry that the planning application affects the parish councillor's Auntie Flo's back garden or something? Is it realistic to apply all these standards to every little parish? Mr Ricketts: I am sure there are very small parish councils where the code of conduct almost meant that nobody could say anything at any meeting, which may be extreme. I am sure some people interpret the code as a means of preventing some people from speaking, whereas it is a method of allowing people to speak but given certain limitations. There tends to be a very negative portrayal of the code of conduct, whereas when you really look at it quite closely, it allows people even within small communities to say and do no more or less than they were doing previously. It tends just to be when there are perhaps financial considerations in relation to some club that they are supporting or are a member of; and when that comes before the parish council, quite rightly they should not participate in deciding whether to give that particular organisation some money. However, it is not quite as restrictive as people always think it is, on closer inspection, although there is some confusion on how to interpret parts of it - I grant you that. That is the way we should apply it across the board. Parish councils of any size have the power to precept, which means they could go to their local population and ask them, in theory, for a limited amount of money on an annual basis, and they are not subject to any limits or capping. As soon as you have an elected body that is able to tax its local population, you have to expect the code of conduct to apply to those authorities, even if they are very small. Q92 Chairman: Are you worried that the structure of the code might affect the ability to get people to come forward and stand as candidates? Mr Ricketts: It has not been the experience in our view. Initially, there were people who decided they did not want to work under a code of conduct, which I found quite odd because they were working under a code of conduct previously, although maybe it was not as clear as the existing code. There has not been a decline as far as councils themselves are concerned. There have been 300-400 new parish and town councils formed since 2000. Those are made up of councillors within their communities. Although it may have happened in certain small parts of the country, the general statement I do not think is a disincentive at all. Q93 Andrew Bennett: How much time do you think someone on the town or parish council should spend on being trained for this sort of thing? Mr Ricketts: That is a very good question! It is quite hard to think. If I can explain how our organisation works, parish and town councils affiliate to county associations, and through that they affiliate also to national associations, so it tends to be on the whole the county associations that provide training, as well as other bodies, to parish and town councils. They would invite members along to training of one sort or another on a monthly or bi-monthly basis that is not always code of conduct related. If the county association invited member councillors along on an annual basis to have training on the code of conduct, that would be acceptable. Sometimes, it is not the courses being available, but it is getting people along to those courses. With councillors - certainly whenever I address an audience, you are almost preaching to the converted. It is the people that do not attend courses that you need to get in front of you, not those who turn up. Q94 Andrew Bennett: Mr Mussett, in the first session, made it clear that it was a major problem that a lot of councillors did not participate. Do you agree with that? Ms Edila: To add to what my colleague has said, there is a variety of methods whereby we aim to provide training. Clearly, induction of newly-elected members is our first target group. There is a series of seminars over the course of the year. We have had quite a lot of new legislation, which provides an additional opportunity - the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act - to train members on dealing with the code in determination of planning applications, and likewise the Licensing Act where there are ongoing seminars. We tend to look at that. It is more difficult to attract the more experienced members to the regular ongoing seminars. It is ideal to aim for the annual conferences in addition to the new areas of legislation where there will be a more direct focus in terms of the level of their interest, because they are on those major committees where they need to be mindful of the operation of the code. That is the way in which we aim to ensure there is an ongoing programme of training and development. Q95 Andrew Bennett: You think the amount of time you demand people to do the training is reasonable, given responsibilities to spouses and to families, and the need to get round and talk to the electorate. Ms Edila: I would advocate that our experience is that the training programme and the frequently of availability is reasonable. The new members will clearly need more training initially, and they welcome that approach. The more experienced members tend to focus training in relation to new legislation, and the way we tend to programme for those tends to work reasonably well. Q96 Andrew Bennett: Should those who do not turn up be penalised? Ms Edila: One of the ways we have aimed to address that is to enshrine it in the various constitutions - for example if you have not been trained on planning and code of conduct, you cannot sit on that particular committee. That tends to incentivise members to train on that part. Q97 Andrew Bennett: But I can go to a meeting and take no notice of what is going on at all, so how do you prove that I have been trained? Ms Edila: That is a difficult one. One could only hope that in terms of your understanding of compliance with the code ----- Q98 Andrew Bennett: Do I do a test, then? Ms Edila: Not at all; we do not test members. It is performance at committees; and certainly my members, the monitoring officers attending committees, have an overview of the extent of members' awareness and application of the code. Clearly, where there are difficulties you would ensure that you provided that particular member additional support and guidance. Q99 Mr Betts: Should all members who have been complained about receive information about the complaint before it is sent for investigation? Mr Ricketts: My personal view is that if a complaint has been received about somebody, then the person being complained about should be advised by the Standards Board at the moment the complaint is received. They will be able to tell them more in due course. I cannot see any fairer way of looking at it. 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. Memorandum submitted by Local Government Association Examination of Witnesses:
Witnesses: Sir Jeremy Beecham, Vice Chairman, Ms Chloe Lambert, Deputy Chairman, and Mr Roy Williams, Head of Member Services, Local Government Association, examined. Q103 Andrew Bennett: Has the Standards Board been a success? Has it raised standards in local government, or has it increased the public's view that there is some corruption in local government? Sir Jeremy Beecham: I do not think it has raised standards. I think it has contributed to raising public confidence in local government. There is no evidence to suggest there is any significant problem with corruption in local government and of course the Board is not dealing with corruption in the criminal sense because that would be a matter to be pursued by the courts. As the Committee of Standards in Public Life has pointed out on more than one occasion, standards in this country are generally very high, and that is true of local government. In the relatively small percentage of cases where a finding has been made, they have been subjected to a full investigation. Q104 Andrew Bennett: Is it a big bureaucracy that could be got rid of? Sir Jeremy Beecham: No, I think it is important to retain the structure, working perhaps more quickly than it has been able to do in the past, and it is seemingly more effective as the regulations have now come into force and resources are made available. It is important to have an independent structure to deal with the issues as they arise. I do not take the view that some people do that this is an unnecessary bureaucracy. That is not the Local Government Association's position, although we do think its ways of working might be improved - and hearing the last witnesses, that view is not restricted to us. A local gateway might be a better way of filtering some of the claims, but subject to that it has an important part to play. It is not necessarily the only body that needs to be concerned. There is a responsibility on political parties in particular to be active in promoting high standards and dealing with those who transgress them. Ms Lambert: I think the Standards Board has been a success in terms of raising awareness of the need to have a code of conduct and a certain standard of behaviour. The delays we have heard about, which are not being addressed by more local determination, have been the main cause for complaint amongst our members. Q105 Christine Russell: Can I ask you for your views on compulsory training for elected members on the code of conduct, perhaps especially for those members that serve on committees involved with planning and licensing? Ms Lambert: It is essential. I do not see how people can do their jobs as elected members, particularly on those two committees, without the necessary training. I see it as part of any necessary induction when you are first elected to a council, but also you need regular refresher training to keep yourself up to date. The important part about it is that if you are trained, then, again, you are giving more public confidence in the work that councillors do. Sir Jeremy Beecham: I agree with what Chloe has just said, that one needs to be proportionate. It is essential for members of principal councils to have training, but it is not absolutely necessary to train 80,000 parish councillors to the same extent - though maybe the chairs of parish councils should receive the training. Q106 Christine Russell: As an organisation, has the LGA collected any evidence of the contribution of the lack of training to submissions to the Standards Board? Sir Jeremy Beecham: No. I am not sure what the Standards Board reports back, as it were, apart from the numbers of cases dealt with. There are records of some decisions, but I do not think we have trawled through those, and if we did I am not sure it would show training as a particular feature in the cases that go there. Ms Lambert: I think it is important that the Standards Board does offer more in the way of training and guidance to local councillors. I am particularly thinking of the introduction of the new licensing responsibility on local authorities. Q107 Christine Russell: What form do you think that should take? Ms Lambert: It needs to be in all sorts of different forms. I heard today, when I was receiving some licensing training myself, that there is going to be an interactive DVD on licensing hearings, which I am sure will be a best-seller! You need different sorts of training - role-playing as much as anything in that particular case. Q108 Christine Russell: The difficulty is, as we heard earlier this afternoon, that there are still a high percentage of parish councils that are not even connected to the Internet. Ms Lambert: I understand that, and that is why it needs to take different forms. Also, you need to work with local authorities, the principal authorities, to liaise with their parishes. Sir Jeremy Beecham: Training is not necessarily to be confined to elected members. One of the problems that sometimes arises is the excessive caution on the officer side, where, frankly, a more common-sense and robust view might well be more helpful to members. As it is, sometimes extremely cautious advice is tendered and effectively pressure not to participate, when it would be perfectly legitimate for them to do so. We think that clearer guidance from the Board, and perhaps more training for monitoring officers and others would also be relevant. Q109 Chairman: Is the LGA confident that the Standards Board understands subtleties of planning law sufficiently in terms of their judgments where allegations have been made in that sort of arena? Sir Jeremy Beecham: I would hesitate to comment on the judgments they have made. We do have fairly regular contact with them, but we do need to make clear that one has to use common sense in these situations, and in turn they should make that clear. I think it would be wrong to comment on the outlook of particular cases. Ms Lambert: I think there is still a need for further training and guidance with specific examples of scenarios presented to those who are receiving the training about declarations and interests, particularly where a member is two-hatted. Mr Williams: There is also a third element in training, and perhaps a feature that is coming more to the fore, which is any training or guidance that needs to be given to members of standards committees locally where they are now going to be able to undertake investigation and adjudication. Until now they have not been able to take forward the investigation element, but the regulations have been recently put in place. There may well be a need for a certain amount of training and guidance on how to conduct that sort of investigation and adjudication, to ensure a consistency of approach across the country. Q110 Mr Betts: Should all individuals who are complained about be made aware of the complaint against them before a decision is made to carry out the investigation? Sir Jeremy Beecham: I would have thought so, yes. Ms Lambert: It is only fair that there should be. Q111 Mr Betts: We have had complaints that there have been occasions when the individual complained about first read about it in the local press. Sir Jeremy Beecham: Absolutely wrong. Ms Lambert: It is quite wrong. Sir Jeremy Beecham: There is a concern about publicity. The Board is clear that there should not be publicity until the matter is adjudicated on. Sometimes there are leaks and sometimes a deliberate move to embarrass people. I am surprised, frankly, if it is the case that complaints have been made and members not notified. Q112 Chairman: Do you think the whistle-blowing protection would be compromised if the member making the complaint were named during the investigation? Sir Jeremy Beecham: There are a number of issues around whistle-blowing. I do not think it is necessary to identify those who make the complaint. We are rather more concerned about the duty that is imposed on elected members ----- Q113 Chairman: The Clause 7 rule? Sir Jeremy Beecham: Yes, to blow the whistle, as it were, and a failure to do so in itself of course becomes a breach. We think that goes too far and is unnecessary. Ms Lambert: It would also tend to lead to more vicious or vexatious claims, which could be made for political reasons for instance. Q114 Andrew Bennett: On the question of publicity, it is quite a ploy, is it not; that you complain to the local papers that you are going to make a complaint to the Standards Board in March just after somebody's nomination has gone in, and sometime the following March some adjudication says there is no case to answer? What should you do about that? Sir Jeremy Beecham: We have argued that the committee of standards and the Standards Board - a disclosure of that kind should itself be a breach and it should be capable of being adjudicated upon by the Board. In other words, it should be an offence to disclose a complaint. Q115 Andrew Bennett: If you were a councillor it would be an offence, but if you were just a member of the general public it would not matter, would it - or if you were a candidate? Sir Jeremy Beecham: No. Q116 Andrew Bennett: Particularly if you were not expecting to be elected. Ms Lambert: It is extremely difficult to legislate against such cases. Sir Jeremy Beecham: You cannot stop that. Q117 Andrew Bennett: No, but you could say that if people seek publicity for their complaint, the Standards Board would not investigate, and that would be a pretty firm way in which you could stop that sort of abuse. Mr Williams: That might be a little difficult because that pre-supposes that the complaint is vexatious and does not necessarily warrant investigation. Q118 Andrew Bennett: So it is all right if you receive publicity for a genuine complaint; it is only wrong if you get publicity for a vexatious complaint. Sir Jeremy Beecham: I am not sure that Mr Bennett has not touched on a rather good idea, actually! Mr Williams: The other function of that is that time has been taken up to now to investigate. Q119 Andrew Bennett: So there is this problem about publicity beforehand. What about publicity for the council on the website when a decision has been reached? Should they go on to the website, found guilty or found ... Sir Jeremy Beecham: They should certainly go on if found guilty because that is regarded as an issue of public confidence; and if they wish they could go on if they are not guilty, but that must be a decision for the individual council, which may well wish to go public, but on the other hand it may wish to let the matter lie. Q120 Andrew Bennett: Is there any evidence that it is discouraging people coming forward to go on to councils? Do they think it is bureaucratic and difficult to cope with? Sir Jeremy Beecham: I am not aware of that in principal councils. There was a suggestion, and I do not know whether it still holds, from parish councils that it would deter people, and it is alleged that it has led to a number of people resigning from parish councils in the early days. I do not know whether that remains the case. Ms Lambert: In my experience people are more put off by completing the register of interests than by the code itself. Q121 Mr Betts: There has been criticism of the Standards Board that it takes far too much time looking at its own procedures, spending money on glossy brochures, and promoting various aspects of its work, rather than dealing with the complaints that were being sent to it. Was that fair criticism? Sir Jeremy Beecham: I do not think it is entirely fair because they had a problem with inadequate numbers of staff to begin with, and, as it later turns out, difficulty procuring the necessary regulations to cover part of their work. In any case, it is probably important for them to establish a profile, as it were, in setting up shop. In any event, I think that that is in the past and we are now certainly seeking to concentrate on turning round cases quickly. It is a fair point, as Mr Williams said, that they should be looking as closely at guidance and training and preventative aspects of their work as well as dealing with cases, and hopefully the caseload will drop as matters are referred to the Standards Board. Q122 Mr Betts: Is it your experience that things are getting better? Last year it was pretty awful, was it not? One of the key figures I saw was that their target was to deal with 90 per cent of their serious investigations in six months, and in fact over half of them, were taking over six months. Sir Jeremy Beecham: It is worse than the average planning authority. Ms Lambert: It is unacceptable, but it is getting better. Q123 Chairman: Previous witnesses have given their views on the role that the local standards committees are taking in filtering through the Standards Board, which is slightly different from the way in which things are operating at the moment. Do you think that would be any better, or are there risks in that? Ms Lambert: I think it would be helpful, but I think it is more that the complaints need to start off at local level, rather than go to the Standards Board and then come back local authorities. They need to start off, because so many of these, particularly where they are vexatious or political, could be eliminated before the need to go to the Standards Board, if they were dealt with ----- Q124 Chairman: Is that not equally the worry that some of the valid ones might be eliminated before they got to the Standards Board? Ms Lambert: It would not be a worry that I would have. Q125 Andrew Bennett: A good city boss in the past would have sorted them out. Sir Jeremy Beecham: One tries! Q126 Chairman: In terms of the guidance on the code, there had been a worry in the past about people that had been appointed by councils to outside bodies not being allowed to speak on matters concerning those bodies. Has that been resolved in more recent times? Sir Jeremy Beecham: I am not sure it has. I have a current case in my own authority, where there is an issue around a city academy. A member is appointed by the authority to chair a governing body of an existing school, and she has been advised that she has a prejudicial interest and should not even attend a scrutiny committee, let alone an executive committee. This is an area where there does need to be clear and more robust guidance. Q127 Chairman: Is that local advice? Ms Lambert: Yes, and lawyers - as I am declaring my interest - are inclined to be somewhat over cautious. Q128 Chairman: That is the concern that has been expressed, and I thought the Standards Board had said they had tried to resolve it, but it is a question we can put to them. Ms Lambert: Further guidance needs to be given, particularly to those who are asked to be a trustee of an outside body. We are always advised on my authority not to be a trustee because of the legal implications of it, but I know that other authorities do not receive the same advice. Chairman: Thank you very much for your evidence. |