Issue details

The Standards Committee’s functions include functions relating to standards of conduct of District Councillors, Town and Parish Councillors and co-opted members under the Localism Act 2011 or regulations made under it.

National good practice is that the Council should devise and adopt a protocol to ensure there is clarity about the Independent Person role and to make sure that there is clear separation of the roles of the Independent Persons, the Monitoring Officer and the Standards Committee.

The Council has an adopted set of Local Assessment Procedures (LAP) which comprehensively set out the way in which complaints about member conduct will be dealt with by the Monitoring Officer and the Standards Committee, and the proposed Protocol mirrors the LAP’s requirements as they relate to the Independent Persons.