Meeting documents
Standards Committee
Tuesday, 25th September 2007
Present
Chair
Mr J P Haywood
Councillors
A Bridson, WJ Davies, D Hawkins, Sarah Quinn, SL Rowlands
Deputy
AC Hodson (for Cllr Karen Hayes)
Independent members
Mr KD Jones
Apologies
Mrs L M Rodgers
Index to Minutes
- Minute 10 - DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
- Minute 11 - MINUTES
- Minute 12 - MATTERS ARISING
- Minute 13 - CODE OF CONDUCT FOR MEMBERS - "THE CODE UNCOVERED"
- Minute 14 - INDEPENDENT MEMBERS - APPOINTMENT
- Minute 15 - LOCAL GOVERNMENT OMBUDSMAN - ANNUAL LETTER 2006/07
Minute 10 - DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
Minute Text :
The members of the Committee were invited to consider whether they had a personal or prejudicial interest in connection with any of the items on the agenda and, if so, to declare it and state the nature of such interest. No declarations were made.
Minute 11 - MINUTES
Minute Text :
Minute Decision :
Resolved - That the minutes of the previous meeting, held on 2 July 2007, which were submitted to and accepted by the Council on 16 July, be received.
Minute 12 - MATTERS ARISING
Minute Text :
Further to minute 7, the Acting Monitoring Officer reported that demand for places at the Annual Assembly of Standards Committees had been high, and the Council had not been able to secure any places, but was currently on the waiting list.
Minute Decision :
Resolved - That the Acting Monitoring Officer book the required place(s) if any become available.
Minute 13 - CODE OF CONDUCT FOR MEMBERS - "THE CODE UNCOVERED"
Minute Text :
The Committee viewed the training DVD "The Code Uncovered", issued by the Standards Board for England. It illustrated the key changes in the revised Model Code of Conduct, which the Council had adopted as its own Code. The Board recommended that, in the first instance, it be viewed by Standards Committees.
The DVD made particular reference to changes in the requirements for declaring personal and prejudicial interests. The members of the Committee were anxious to ensure that the information was made clear to all members of the Council as soon as possible, particularly in relation to members' ability to represent the views of their constituents without necessarily barring themselves from speaking at meetings.
The Acting Monitoring Officer stressed that it was always the best course for members to seek advice well in advance of meetings as to the nature of any particular interest that they might have. The underlying aim of the new Code of Conduct was to ensure that members were not excluded from the democratic process unless there were strong reasons for doing so.
Minute Decision :
Resolved -
(1) That arrangements be made for all members of the Council to view the DVD.
(2) That a paper copy of the content of the DVD be circulated to members.
Minute 14 - INDEPENDENT MEMBERS - APPOINTMENT
Minute Text :
Further to minute 8 (2/7/07), the Committee was advised that an advertisement had been placed in the Wirral Globe and other notices had been widely circulated in order to seek applications for the two impending vacancies among the independent members. The Committee was requested to agree arrangements for interviewing applicants as soon as possible after the closing date of 12 October.
Minute Decision :
Resolved - That the applicants for the impending vacancies be interviewed by a panel comprising the three party spokespersons and that the panel be authorised to make recommendations to the Council meeting on 29 October.
Minute 15 - LOCAL GOVERNMENT OMBUDSMAN - ANNUAL LETTER 2006/07
Minute Text :
The Acting Monitoring Officer submitted and reported upon the Annual Letter from the Local Government Ombudsman, which set out statistics of the complaints made against the authority in the year 2006/07 and how they had been dealt with. Although the number of complaints against the Council received by the Ombudsman had fallen from 128 to 77, that was explained by the fact that the previous year had included a multiple complaint about housing benefit, and in 2006/07 the number of complaints about housing benefit had fallen from 53 to 2. That meant that the level of complaints had remained fairly static for the past four years.
The major point of concern raised in the Ombudsman's letter was the delay in the overall time taken by the Council to respond to enquiries. Discounting the complicated multiple housing benefit complaint, the average time was still approximately 43 days, which was considered far from satisfactory. The housing benefit complaint had taken much longer than that because of the serious legal implications involved. That had been pointed out to the Ombudsman, but little account had been taken of that fact and the Ombudsman had published the figure in national statistics of 112 days as Wirral's average response time. As a result, the Chief Executive and the former Head of Legal and Member Services had met with the Ombudsman to discuss the problem, and it was felt that the error had been acknowledged.
With regard to the Action Plan that had been put in place with the aim of reducing response times, the Acting Monitoring Officer explained that it had come into effect late in the previous year. There were indications that response times had improved significantly over the first three months of 2007/08, to the extent that Wirral had been in the upper quartile nationally. He was happy to consider any other measures that members might suggest for improving response times. In relation to training, he suggested that, rather than incur additional cost by training more officers in complaints handling, the Council might first wait to assess the benefits of the initial training programme, which had involved a total of 15 staff - solicitors in Legal Services and senior staff from other departments who were responsible for complaints handling.
Members of the Committee were generally concerned to ensure that they were in a position to monitor the performance in the handling of Ombudsman complaints.
Minute Decision :
Resolved -
(1) That the Ombudsman's Annual Letter be noted.
(2) That -
(a) circulate to all members the Ombudsman's special report on telecommunication masts;
(b) provide this Committee with quarterly updates on the progress of Ombudsman complaints, based on the information available through the Customer Relationship Management system;
(c) ensure that the action plan for improving response times is presented in a form that allows members to monitor progress;
(d) remind those officers who have benefited from training in the handling of Ombudsman complaints of the need to cascade what they have learnt down their departments;
(e) report back on these issues to the next meeting.
(Minutes Published: 17 October 2007)