Minutes

No Declarations of Interest were made at the meeting pursuant to the Council’s Code of Member Conduct.

Resolved:

That the minutes of the meetings of the Assessment Subcommittee held on 10 January 2011 be taken as read and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

The Subcommittee noted the Council’s Code of Conduct for Members and the recently revised Assessment Criteria agreed by the Standards Committee for Local Assessment cases.

Resolved:

That the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the item of business set out below on the grounds that it would involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the paragraphs of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:

The Subcommittee considered a complaint made against a Councillor.  Miss C O’Boyle (Monitoring Officer) was present at the meeting to advise the Subcommittee as required on details of the Code of Conduct and Local Assessment Criteria relative to the complaint and the procedure to be followed in order to ensure proper consideration was given to the complaint. Mr S Hill (Local Assessment Officer) was present at the meeting to outline the complaint for the Subcommittee and to record the decisions of the Subcommittee in relation to the complaint.

The Subcommittee had before them the following documents which were taken into consideration:

(1)        Complaint Form and enclosures submitted by the Complainant received on 13 July 2011;

(2)        Letter from S Hill to the complainant dated 19 July 2011;

(3)        Further letter and enclosures from the Complainant dated 22 July 2011;

(4)        The subject members Declaration of Acceptance of Office; and

(5)        Relevant minutes of the subject members authority.

Resolved:

That, in accordance with Section 57A(2) of the Local Government Act 2000, as amended, the Assessment Sub-committee of the Standards Committee, having considered the complaint against their criteria for assessment, has decided that no action should be taken on the allegation for the following reasons:

(1)        The Subcommittee were of the view that the incident was relatively minor and on that basis the case was not serious enough to warrant further action;

(2)        The complainant supplied information about both allegations which was of too general a nature from which to make a judgement to investigate and insufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation of failure to declare a prejudicial interest on the matter; and

(3)        From the information provided, the alleged incident would not ultimately be serious enough to warrant a sanction therefore an investigation would serve no useful purpose.