Agenda item

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place)

The Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place) which provided an update on the review of ethical standards in Parish Councils.

The Committee’s work programme included a report on the operation of the ethical standards regime in parish councils within the City.  The Committee had last considered this topic in December 2016.

It was noted that there were three parished areas within the City: Allesley, Finham and Keresley.  Each had a parish council which met around 8-10 times a year.  The report set out some information about the financial position and operation of each of the three parish councils.

It was acknowledged that the role of the Acting Monitoring Officer, and the City Council itself, in the operation of parish councils was limited.  The Acting Monitoring Officer was required to publish the register of interests of parish councillors and to deal with complaints about parish councillors under their code of conduct.  In all other areas of ethical standards and governance, the Acting Monitoring Officer and the City Council, could only advise parish councils on good practice and could not require them to take a particular course of action.  How the parish council operated was a matter for the parish council.

As the information provided by parish clerks about their governance arrangements did not vary much from year to year, the Acting Monitoring Officer had conducted a table top exercise to check what information was available to the public on the parish council websites.  In summary, this covered the areas of:-

·  Adoption of the Code of Conduct.

·  Completion and review of Register of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests.

·  Declarations of Interests at meetings.

·  Standing Orders.

·  Publication of Meeting Dates, Agendas, Report and Minutes on website.

·  Complaints about Parish Councillors.

·  Public Engagement with Parish Councils.

In summary, it was found that all three parish councils had good procedures in place to ensure that their councillors complied with their legal duties to register their statutory interests, as well as prompts on agendas to remind them to declare them.  All had websites which provided useful information for the public on the work of the parish councils, although the completeness of this information varied between councils.  It was acknowledged that parish clerks had limited resources available to them and there were not the same legal obligations on parish council’s to publish documents such as agendas, reports and minutes on their websites, as applied to the City Council.  The minimum legal requirement was to give notice of a meeting in a conspicuous place in the parish and to allow the minutes to be inspected.

All parish councils had a session at the start of each meeting to allow members of the public to speak on matters of concern, which helped to promote good engagement with the community and an understanding of what the parish council did.

In considering the report, it was acknowledged that Finham Parish Council received significantly more financial support than Allesley and Keresley parishes, which could affect the amount of work they could undertake by comparison to Allesley and Keresley.

RESOLVED that the Ethics Committee:-

1.  Note the content of the report.

2.  Request that the Acting Monitoring Officer offer suggestions to the parish clerks on where their good practice on ethical standards might be further improved.