To approve as a correct record the minutes of the Standards Committee held on 5 November 2024.

The minutes of the Standard Committee held on the 5 November 2024 were approved as a correct record.

There were no urgent items of business.

There were no declarations of interest.

The report presented set out the refreshed Member Development Strategy and the Member Training and Induction Schedule for 2025-2026. The report allowed Members to review the contents annually and for this year, take note of any amendments to the documents following the internal audit of the Member training offer from the summer of 2024. With the postponement of the local elections, the Induction Day would be replaced with a Development Day, a draft agenda of the day was tabled for members.

Councillors C Kent, Shinnick, Johnson, D Arnold, Fox and co-opted members spoke on this item, with the following comments made:

·       Noted the £5k budget and questioned where this amount originated and whether this was sufficient.

·       Confirmed the LGA continued to support the council on training.

·       Information booklet to be provided at the development day to help members identify officers.

·       Move the “mock council session” to earlier in the training calendar.

·       Members acknowledged this session to be invaluable to existing and new members.

·       The pathway for Corporate Parenting should be change to “member skills” and for “All” to ensure that all 49 members completed this training.

·       Suggestion of two types of Corporate Parenting training (1) specific to committee member and (2) general session for other members.

·       Reintroduce the “If I knew then what I know now” item onto the development day agenda for any new members.

·       It was noted the training schedule for new members had been invaluable, brilliant.

·       Questioned the costings of external training providers and whether the £5k budget covered those costs.

·       Confirmed the report focused on 2025/26, with the programme being reviewed annually.

·       Confirmed that all members would be offered a tour of key locations across Thurrock.

·       Referred to the 50% of members required to facilitate the development day and how viable that would be.

·       Questioned what work would be undertaken to secure that 50% number and how the Standards Committee members could assist.

·       Requested the Chair Training be brought forward in the training calendar.

RESOLVED

1.    Approved the Member Development Strategy 2025-26 attached at appendix 1.

2.    In accordance with Section 13 of the Strategy, Standards Committee made any recommendations to Full Council on the resources and budget available for Member Development for consideration for the 2026/27 year.

3.    Agreed the Member Training Schedule 2025-26 attached at appendix 2, based on discussions taken place at this evening’s meeting.

4.    Endorsed the application of Member learning pathways attached at appendix 2.

5.    In relation to paragraph 4.7, provided views on what could be usefully included into a ‘Development Day’ in May 2025 for Members to attend and how best to market it to Members to ensure attendance.

The report presented provided an update to the committee on ethical compliance and conduct in Thurrock to help assess the ethical health of the authority. It covered the relevant reporting period (28 October 2024 to 3 February 2025). Previous report for the last Standards Committee being held on 5 November 2024 reported up to 27 October 2024, publication of that agenda and reports being 3 February 2025): The report provided information on the gifts and hospitality declared by Councillors; declarations of interest at meetings, new complaints received under the members’ Code of Conduct and actions taken, together with details of any complaints concluded during the period and outcomes.

Councillors C Kent, D Arnold and co-opted members spoke on this item, with the following comments made:

·       Members questioned timescales on how long complainants were given to supply requested information so that cases could be closed.

·       Concerns that some complaints could over run without timescales being in place.

·       In regard to Appendix 1, asked for some comparisons on historical gifts and hospitality declarations.

·       Agreed this data should be available within the report.

The meeting went into exempt session at 7.30pm.

The meeting convened into open session at 7.47pm

RESOLVED

1.    Noted and provided comment on the register of gifts and hospitality at Appendix 1;

2.    Noted and provided comment on the register of declarations of interest at Appendix 2;

3.    Noted and provided comment on Code of Conduct complaints received and concluded during the period, as set out in exempt Appendix 3.

Following a review of the constitution by the Monitoring Officer and Deputy Monitoring Officer as part of the overarching governance improvement programme, the paper presented a draft chapter of the new constitution dealing with the arrangements for dealing with a councillor code of conduct complaint, which took into account feedback from members at the November Standards Committee hearing. Following Standards Committee any further revisions required would be made and the new chapter then referred to Council for approval.

Councillors C Kent and D Arnold spoke on this item, with the following comments made:

·       Confirmed that paragraph 6.1.7 on page 66 of the agenda mirrored the current procedure for the code of conduct.

·       Concerns on how subjective the wording could be and agreed to look at this and the LGA model.

·       Members noted the Composition and Terms of Reference of a Standards Hearing Panel as set out in Appendix 3.

RESOLVED

1.    Approved and recommended to Full Council for approval the revised complaints procedure and associated changes to the Standards Committee and Standards Hearing Panel terms of reference in Appendix 1 and 3;

2.    Delegated to the Executive Director of Corporate Resources and Monitoring Officer any minor or clerical changes required between Standards Committee and submission of the report to Full Council.

The report presented sought the Standard Committees views on the proposals in order to shape the Council’s response to the government’s consultation, launched to introducing a mandatory minimum code of conduct for councillors of local authorities in England, and measures to strengthen the standards and conducts regime. The proposals included that local authorities should have the power to suspend councillors serious code of conduct breaches for a maximum of 6 months. It was noted the consultation would close at 11.59pm on 26 February 2025.

Councillors C Kent, D Arnold, Fox, Shinnick, Johnson and co-opted Members spoke on this item, with the following comments made:

·       Member confirmed she had already completed the on-line consultation.

·       Members were urged to complete this before the deadline.

·       Members discussed and were supportive of the Independent Body.

·       Member noted there was not enough repercussions on those members who disregarded the code of the conduct.

·       Member noted that members should not be suspended for an allegation until the event had been investigated.

·       Acknowledged that cases should not be open for months until getting resolved, timescales would need to be put in place.

·       Noted also this would depend on the seriousness of the allegations which had to be succinct.

·       Noted that members need to be held to account for actions.

·       This was an example where internal timeframes could be added into the constitution.

·       The consensus would be that Standard Committee members would submit their own individual response.

·       Noted the Monitoring Officer would respond separately.

·       Link to the consultation would be sent to members.

RESOLVED

Members of Standards Committee provided their comments on the proposed measures to introduce a mandatory minimum code of conduct for local authorities in England, strengthen the standards and conduct regime and to help shape the Council’s response to the consultation.

Members noted the draft work programme for 2025/26 and requested an update be added on the consultation on strengthening the standards and conduct.

A full recording of this meeting can be viewed from the following link:

Thurrock Council - Standards Committee, 11/02/25