Agenda

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 1 December 2011 (ST3) and to receive information arising from them.

Report by County Solicitor & Monitoring Officer (ST5).

At its meeting in December 2011, the Standards Committee gave initial consideration to the standards implications of the Localism Act. At that time, the Committee was minded to recommend Council to retain a standards committee under the new regime. However, following an informal meeting of the Committee on 16 January 2012 to further consider the implications of the Act in more detail, this matter has been brought back to the Committee for further consideration.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to recommend Council that:

(a)              A Standards Committee is not appointed under the Localism Act 2011;

(b)              The Audit Committee be renamed as the Audit and Governance Committee and its terms of reference expanded to include oversight of member standards;

(c)               A member-officer working group be appointed to enable consideration of standards complaints against members of the Council reporting to the Audit & Governance Committee; and

(d)              The Monitoring Officer be delegated to agree appropriate procedures for the handling of complaints.