To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution, which is available to view at the following link:-
https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeID=151&Info=1&bcr=1
The deadline for the submission of public questions is 3 clear working days before the meeting.
The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday the working day before the meeting.
The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.
Minutes:
The following three statements were received from Mr McKinstry:
Statement 1.
Because they were reported to full Council, we know the identities of the non-compliant councillors in Complaints 97, 141 and 146; and we know, therefore, that the Chair of the Children's Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Cllr Bobbie Dove, has had two bullying allegations upheld against her and failed to undertake anti-bullying training. This in my view is an outrageous situation and the councillor should consider her position.
It strikes me, meanwhile, that besides the annual ballot, BCP's Constitution makes no provision for challenging an incumbent Chair. This Committee might therefore seek a Constitutional amendment, whereby a motion of no confidence could be brought against a Chair (or indeed any Committee member) for Code of Conduct breaches, and/or non-compliance with sanctions. This is an excellent suggestion, as it would fortify the Standards regime while preserving committee autonomy.
Statement 2.
Regarding paragraph 22: is reporting non-compliance to Council having the desired effect? It could certainly do with strengthening. I well remember the shock in the public gallery last November, when three such reports were presented to full Council: the councillors weren't named orally, debate was prohibited, and the entire business concluded in 40 seconds. This was particularly galling since Cllr Bagwell had spent over a year failing to apologise for disrespectful conduct. Naming councillors in the chamber, specifying breaches, and incorporating those details into the minutes, would prove a stronger deterrent against non-compliance and poor behaviour generally. On the subject of chamber protocols (and unrelated to the above complaints), any apologies to full Council should be run past this Committee first, to weed out any misleading statements, and obviate tokenism.
Statement 3.
Finally, last year I contacted all county, district and unitary authorities in England, asking how many councillor complaints were determined in the year ending March 2023. This Council's figure - 61 - is the second highest among the 104 councils that replied, surpassed only by East Riding of Yorkshire District Council (532 complaints - although 512 related to the same incident). Hampshire Council had 26 complaints; Dorset, 12; and Southampton, Bedford and Tameside Councils, zero. Paragraph 24 describes BCP's "significant increase in complaints" as a "trend". In fact, the "61" figure relates only to the year ending March 2023 (see Paragraph 10), and separate evidence suggests an astronomic decrease since then. This is clear from the papers for November's scrutiny meeting, p. 31 - "Few complaints have been made about individual councillors since the elections in May" - and I wanted to place that on the Standards Committee's records this evening.
Janie Berry, Director of Law and Governance responded as follows:
I take on board the comments that have been made in the three public statements and I do think there is merit in the Standards Committee undertaking a review of the procedures which support the Code of Conduct. In my experience, it is essential that the Standards Committee upholds the absolute highest standards of ethical governance. Ensuring that all councillors here at BCP adhere to the Nolan Principles as you would expect if you stood in the shoes of a member of the public. For extremely exceptional circumstances, in my opinion, where code of conduct complaints have been upheld, the decision should be placed in the public domain. They should be reported in a prominent place on the Council’s website because that meets the expectations and standards of correct ethical governance. It also meets the governments expectations of people like myself, the Head of Paid Service, the Section 151 officer and the Head of Internal Audit accessing the best value and the governance framework of the Council. Failure to meet the demands of transparency could be seen as a significant issue for the Council’s Annual Governance Statement, if there are repeated concerns over time.
In Summary, as the Monitoring Officer I accept that I am very new, but I have significant experience in supporting Standards Committees in achieving good governance. I do feel that it would be timely for the Committee to consider a review of the procedures, learn from past experiences and learn from the incidents that have been reported to you by a member of the public. It may be that you do not need to make any changes, but I do think it would be timely for the Committee to undertake the review to assure yourselves that you have all the mechanisms and the toolkit available to conduct your roles here whilst holding up the best standards of ethical governance to the maximum possibility that you have without feeling strangulated.