Issue - meetings

(Monitoring Officer) To consider an update on the status of training of members on the Code of Conduct.

A training session was held on 10 July 2018 and an update will be given at the meeting on the outstanding members who require training.

The Monitoring Officer reported to the Committee on the current status of the training of members on the Council’s Code of Conduct.

The Committee was advised that a further training session had been held on 10 July 2018 and that the attendance of five members remained outstanding during their current term of office. The Monitoring Officer reported that further member training on the Code of Conduct was due to provided during October 2018 and that efforts would be made to secure the participation of the outstanding members at this session.

RESOLVED:

That the status of the training of members on the Code of Conduct be reviewed further by the Committee, after the additional training session to be held in October 2018.

(Deputy Monitoring Officer) To consider the attached report (STD-002-2017/18).

The Deputy Monitoring Officer, S Hill, presented an update on Member Code of Conduct Training.

S Hill reminded the Committee that it had decided at its last meeting that all Councillors should attend Code of Conduct training at least once during their term of office, or more frequently if the Code was changed substantially. Since then, the Chairman of the Committee had written to all Members of the District Council regarding the importance of such training. Two Code of Conduct training sessions had been held on 23 May 2017 and 13 June 2017; a further session was planned for 2 October 2017 for those Councillors who had yet to attend such training during their current term of office and the majority of those Members had indicated that they would attend this session. Following this session, there would be only three Councillors who had not attended any such training.

In response to questions from the Committee, S Hill stated that Officers had run training sessions at Town and Parish Councils, and that Town and Parish Councils would be invited to the session planned for 2 October; this session could also be webcast for subsequent viewing. Town and Parish Councils had been informed of the previous Code of Conduct training sessions by the Member Support Officer and further sessions could be scheduled for the local Councils if required. However, the Monitoring Officer, C O’Boyle, cautioned that if further such sessions was organised then it was essential to have a good attendance from Local Councillors as such training was very time intensive for Officers to organise.

S Hill added that there were a number of interesting courses coming up and Officers had had a positive response from writing to the Members individually on this issue. The Committee made two suggestions for further consideration: investigate the possibility of providing e-learning courses for Members in the future; and providing targeted training to the Chairmen of Town and Parish Council Planning Committees.

Resolved:

(1)        That the updated position statement on Code of Conduct Training, as attached at Appendix 1 of the report and reported at the meeting, be noted.