Agenda and minutes

Meeting held on 15 March 2016

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The Minutes of the Meeting held on 15 March 2016 were confirmed and signed by the Chairman as a true and correct record.

Report of the Monitoring Officer

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The Monitoring Officer presented the Annual Report to the Members. 

Answering questions raised by Members, the Monitoring Officer confirmed that:

-         The majority of complaints received were in relation to allegations that a councillor had treated others with disrespect or brought the office of councillor into disrepute;

-         All Parish and Town Council clerks would be requested contact their Neighbourhood Planning Groups to pass on the Standards Committee’s recommendations that the Neighbourhood Plan Groups review / adopt a Code of Conduct for that Group;

-         In house Social Media Training would be arranged for members and also included as part of the Standards induction training.

-         It is envisaged that further sessions will be held next year for Parish and Town Councils on standards training as there was insufficient time to provide this at the sessions in September and October

It was then RESOLVED that the Committee agreed the Annual Report and further RESOLVED that:

1.    The Monitoring Officer will log standards complaints on a yearly basis from 1 April 2017 to correspond with the financial year

2.    The Monitoring Officer will contact all Parish and Town Clerks with the Standards Committee’s recommendations that all Neighbourhood Plan Groups should review or adopt a local Code of Conduct

3.    Refresher standards training to be arranged for West Devon Members next year to include social media training

4.    The Monitoring Officer will circulate the letter from Sedgemoor Council requesting support to Sedgemoor’s Standards Chairman’s request to central Government for changes to the current standards regime, and sanctions in particular