Agenda and minutes

To note the attendance at this meeting of any duly appointed Reserve Members.

Reserve Members may attend meetings:-

(i)                 to take the place of an ordinary Member for whom they are a reserve;

(ii)               where the ordinary Member will be absent for the whole of the meeting; and

(iii)             the meeting notes at the start of the meeting at the item ‘Reserves’ that the Reserve Member is or will be attending as a reserve;

(iv)              if a Reserve Member whose intention to attend has been noted arrives after the commencement of the meeting, then that Reserve Member can only act as a Member from the start of the next item of business on the agenda after his/her arrival.

RESOLVED:  To note the attendance at this meeting of the following duly appointed Reserve Members:-

To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary or non pecuniary interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:

(a)               all Members of the Committee;

(b)               all other Members present.

RESOLVED:  To note that there were no declarations of interests made by Members.

That the minutes of the meeting held on 1 December 2014 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

During this item, the Chair reported that the Committee’s proposal on using officer titles in minutes had been agreed.

A Member expressed that minutes should also detail the attendance of those Members who were present at meetings and sitting in the public gallery.  The Committee agreed that this issue should be referred to the Constitution Review Working Group for further consideration as this may need to involve amendments to the Constitution.

The Chair also commented that an action to provide information on creditors ledger was outstanding and should be sent to all Members of the Committee after the meeting.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 1 December 2014, be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

To receive any public questions received in accordance with Committee Procedure Rule 17 (Part 4B of the Constitution).

Questions will be asked in the order notice of them was received and there be a time limit of 15 minutes.

[The deadline for receipt of public questions is 3.00 pm, Monday 26^th January 2015.  Questions should be sent to publicquestions@harrow.gov.uk  

No person may submit more than one question].

RESOLVED:  To note that no public questions, petitions or deputations were received at this meeting.

To receive references from Council and any other Committees or Panels (if any).

There were none.

Report of the Director of Legal and Governance Services.

The Committee considered a report which set out proposals to revise the procedure relating to complaints against Councillors.

The Head of Legal Services presented the report and made the following points:

·                     the Council had a statutory obligation to have a Code of Conduct for Councillors and a procedure for dealing with complaints against Councillors;

·                     as part of the proposal looking at achieving efficiencies for Committee and its processes, it had been proposed to streamline the complaints process against Councillors;

·                     the new proposals involved a strengthening of the filter processes by extending the power to rule out complaints which were frivolous and which were more than 6 months old;

·                     the Assessment and Hearing Working Groups and the Assessment and Hearing Review Sub-Committees would be abolished and replaced by a Standards Working Group which would make recommendations to the Monitoring Officer.  The Standards Working Group would retain an Independent Person as its Chair;

·                     where there was a disagreement between the recommendations from the Standards Working Group and the Monitoring Officer following a local hearing, this would be referred to the Committee for determination;

·                     the Independent Persons of the Committee had been consulted on the proposals and were in agreement with them.

During the discussion on this item, the Head of Legal Services responded to a number of issues raised and reported the following:

·                     the punctuation correction would be made;

·                     the term ‘Political Group’ would be clarified within the proposed model procedure;

·                     there were very few sanctions available to the Standards Working Group if a Member was found to have breached the Code of Conduct;

·                     it was a local decision as to whether local hearings were conducted in public or not.  Under the previous legislative regime, the presumption was that these meetings were held in public;

·                     if Independent Persons were to be retained as chairing meetings to deal with complaints, these had to be in a format of working groups. Independent Persons were not able to make formal decisions under the current legislation.  This is why in order to retain this structure, the Monitoring Officer made formal decisions having considered the recommendations of the Working Group.  It was important to note that under the current system, the Monitoring Officer had not yet disagreed with recommendations from the Assessment and Hearing Working Groups;

·                     there was no objection if the Committee wished for a report to be presented back to it in circumstances where the Monitoring Officer disagreed with recommendations made by the Standards Working Group;

·                     the terms of reference for the Standards Working Group would be presented to a future meeting of the Committee;

·                     investigations into complaints were usually conducted by officers, but could also be performed by individuals external to the Council if appropriate.

A Member proposed that the report be deferred until the next meeting of the Committee to allow some of the changes requested to be made and for the Terms of Reference to be presented to the Committee.  This was not agreed.

It was then proposed that the recommendations be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41.

Report of the Director of Finance and Assurance.

The Committee considered a report which set out the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy Statement, Prudential Indicators, Minimum Revenue Provision Policy Statement and Annual Investment Strategy 2015/16.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.