Agenda item

A joint report of the Town Clerk and the Comptroller & City Solicitor.

The Committee considered a joint report of the Town Clerk and the Comptroller & City Solicitor reviewing the current complaints process and form.

A copy of the document with tracked changes visible was tabled for ease of reference.

The Comptroller & City Solicitor highlighted that all of the changes suggested by Members at the last meeting had now been incorporated into the revised document. He clarified that he had not received any further comments from Members outside of the meeting.

The Committee went through the proposed changes within the document and the following points were made:

•   The Chairman requested that (“the City”) be replaced with (“the Corporation” within the Introduction;

•   Under ‘Making a Complaint’, the fourth bullet point should request that, where possible, complainants specify what aspects of the Code have been breached;

•   Under ‘Informal Resolution of Complaints’, (“the Chairman) be replaced by (“the Privileges Chairman”), that the word “verbally” be replaced with “orally and that capital letters be used when referring to the Monitoring Officer ;

•   It was suggested that it be made clear in the document that, whilst informal complaints were possible, formal complaints must be received in writing;

•   Under ‘Assessment of Complaints’, it was suggested that the opening phrase (Before the assessment of a complaint begins) be removed;

•   Under ‘Initial Assessment Decisions”, it was suggested that it be made clear that a copy of any decision, with reasons, would be sent to all parties;

•   Under ‘Appeals Process’ it was suggested that the reference to 21 days be replaced with 20 working days given that working days were referred to throughout the document;

•   The Chairman requested that paragraph numbers be added to the document for ease of reference and that bullet points be replaced with sub paragraphs.

In relation to the Complaint Form, the following suggestions were made:

•   It was noted that the section regarding concerns around details of a complaint being released was Section 5 and not Section 6 as suggested on the front page of the form;

•   Under the section requesting that a complainants identity is kept confidential, it was suggested that reference to physical or other harm be made;

A Member went on to make a more general point around Complaints and those that were dealt with informally by the Chief Commoner for example. She questioned if the Committee could receive an annual written report summarising these. The Comptroller & City Solicitor underlined that Officers were not always aware of the informal conversations the Chief Commoner had. In response to questions around formalising the structure around this, it was highlighted that any written record of such conversations immediately gave them an air of formality.

The Committee requested that the Comptroller and City Solicitor produce a report on the issues around this for discussion at the next meeting of the Standards Committee.

RESOLVED – That, Members delegate authority to the Town Clerk, in consultation with the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Standards Committee, to approve the revised documentation in accordance with the suggestions made today and note the existing arrangements in respect of responding to and managing alleged breaches of the Members’ Code of Conduct.