Issue - meetings

This report provides an overview of the training deemed to be essential for all councillors to complete in addition to the Code of Conduct training that all councillors have competed as part of the induction programme.

The report provides a breakdown of the completion records for each councillor, although the names of individual councillors have been removed to protect the Council’s interests. This will form the baseline for future updates.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'D' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The report provided an overview of the training deemed to be essential for all councillors to complete in addition to the Code of Conduct training that all councillors had competed as part of the induction programme.

The report provided a breakdown of the completion records for each councillor, although the names of individual councillors had been removed to protect the Council’s interests. The Committee was advised that this would form the baseline for future updates.

The Committee discussed the report, including:

• In response to a query from the Chair, the Committee was advised that the data up to 1 July 2025, showed that 18 Councillors had not completed any meta compliance training and 6 Councillors had not completed any of the Skillgate training.
• In response to a statement regarding ensuring all members of the Standards Committee kept fully up to date with all training, the Committee was advised that whilst the training was not currently mandatory, it was classified as essential for all Councillors.
• The Committee continued to discuss the report, the potential impact of non-completion of modules together with ways in which Councillors could be mandated to complete all necessary training, including making training records available as a public record.
• The Chair invited a Councillor, who was not on the Standards Committee, to give his personal experience of trying to access the training modules and the Committee was advised that he found the current format very difficult to access and digest as he was neurodivergent.  The Councillor requested that the Committee be compassionate and inclusive when thinking of mandating the training in its current format.
• In response to a query from the Chair, the Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that Paragraph 21 of the report detailed the need to be mindful of additional support needs of Councillors and to ensure reasonable adjustments, on an individual basis, were in place to assist those who required support.
• The Deputy Monitoring Officer advised he would take the feedback from the Councillor to the training and development team to inform future training methods for those who required additional support.

Following the discussion, it was proposed and seconded to add an (e) to the

Recommendation: that Members of Standards Committee should have a

100% completion record of the mandatory training.

RESOLVED that:

(a)  the training completion records be noted as a baseline for future annual reporting;

(b)  all councillors be sent a quarterly update on their individual performance;

(c)  political group leaders be sent a quarterly report on the progress of their members performance with a request to encourage uptake;

(d)  the training modules deemed as mandatory for employees be designated as mandatory for councillors.

(e)  Members of Standards Committee should have a 100% completion record of the mandatory training.

Voting: For - Unanimous