The Monitoring Officer introduced the report which asked the Standards Committee to consider whether the Council’s current arrangements for handling complaints under the Code of Conduct should be updated.  He explained that the arrangements for dealing with complaints were not amended when the Code of Conduct was updated in 2023 and the Standards Committee had asked for this to be considered. The Monitoring Officer drew attention to the existing arrangements and the arrangements used by the Kent Secretary’s Group used by a number of authorities, as published in the Agenda pack. He said this was the beginning of the process and the recommendation was for the Committee to steer the process. The options were to leave the arrangements as they were, update and amend existing arrangements or to adopt new arrangements using either those used by the Kent Secretary’s Group or those which met the requirements of Committee Members and were fit for purpose for the Council.

Members were invited to make comments which included:

·         The Swale arrangements dealt with the beginning and end of the process but were ‘light’ in the middle;

·         the Kent Secretary’s arrangements were more structured;

·         some of the wording was ambiguous and there was a lack of detail;

·         was critical of the process of a recent Standards Hearing sub-committee;

·         said the Monitoring Officer should not be the complaints investigating officer; and

·         questioned where the background papers were in the report.

The Monitoring Officer said the only relevant papers were the Council’s existing arrangements and the Kent Secretaries arrangements and they were included as appendices to the report. The Local Government Association (LGA)  guidance on arrangements was listed as a background paper, as the LGA papers were not strictly background papers because they were publicly available.  The Monitoring Officer reiterated the purpose of the report and the discussion was to agree whether to continue with the current arrangements, to update and amend or to use alternative arrangements. In response to a Member’s comments, the Monitoring Officer clarified that Swale Borough Council’s code of conduct was from the LGA and the Kent Secretary’s arrangements which had regard to the LGA guidance on arrangements were included in the report to consider.

A Member questioned the timeline of the complaint process and the Monitoring Officer explained it was dependent on the circumstances and discretion would be used. Several Members said they had suggestions to amend the existing arrangements, if it was agreed to progress in that way.

A Member said it was important that those who had been complained about were made aware from the beginning what the complaint was. Another Member said it was not always the victim that made the complaint and the process of complaining on behalf of a victim should be set out clearly.

A Member expressed how important it was to get the process right and suggested setting up a cross party working group to bring a draft proposal back to the Standards Committee. Another Member suggested comments and amendments should be shared by email in the first instance.

The Kent Association of Local Councils (KALC) representative asked a question on the code of conduct for employees. The Chief Executive explained there were separate disciplinary procedures for staff, based on employment law with a range of sanctions.  She also drew attention to the Statutory Officers Disciplinary Appeals sub-committee. The Chief Executive said Councillors were not employees and had different procedures. In response to another Member’s question, the Chief Executive advised that the Officer’s code of conduct was at 4.2 of the Council’s Constitution. Disciplinary procedures for staff were on the Council’s intranet and the Chief Executive agreed that a copy of this would be circulated to Members.

POST MEETING NOTE:  The disciplinary procedures were circulated to Members.

Resolved:

(1)  That Members considered the arrangements for handling complaints under the code of conduct and agreed they should be updated.

(2)  That Members explored the key differences between the two Code of Conduct arrangements, sourced views from Committee Members and determined a way to collaborate and discuss and propose amendments.