Agenda and minutes

Venue: David Hicks 1 - Civic Offices, Shute End, Wokingham RG40 1BN

Contact: Neil Carr  Democratic & Electoral Services Specialist

Items
No. Item

17.

Apologies

To receive any apologies for absence

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were submitted by Dianne King and Imogen Shepherd-Dubey.

18.

Declaration of Interest

To receive any declarations of interest

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

19.

Minutes of Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 56 KB

To confirm the Minutes of the Meeting held on 15 October 2018.

 

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 15 October 2018 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

20.

Public Question Time

To answer any public questions.

 

A period of 30 minutes will be allowed for members of the public to ask questions submitted under notice.

 

The Council welcomes questions from members of the public about the work of this Committee.

 

Subject to meeting certain timescales, questions can relate to general issues concerned with the work of the Committee or an item which is on the Agenda for this meeting.  For full details of the procedure for submitting questions please contact the Democratic Services Section on the numbers given below or go to www.wokingham.gov.uk/publicquestions

Minutes:

There were no public questions.

21.

Member Question Time

To answer any Member questions.

Minutes:

There were no Member questions.

22.

Parish / Town Council Question Time

To answer any questions from Parish / Town Councillors.

Minutes:

There were no questions from Parish or Town Councils.

23.

Update on Complaints and Feedback pdf icon PDF 80 KB

To consider an update on Code of Conduct Complaints and any matters arising.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report, set out at Agenda pages 7 to 12, which gave details of progress relating to a number of ongoing Code of Conduct complaints.

 

The report stated that, since the previous meeting in October 2018, five Code of Conduct complaints had been progressed. No new complaints had been received in that period.

 

Andrew Moulton, Monitoring Officer, updated the Committee on progress relating to the five complaints as follows:

 

·           Following meetings with the Chairman of the Committee and an Independent Person it was concluded that there was no breach of the Code of Conduct in relation to two of the complaints;

 

·           One of the complaints was withdrawn;

 

·           Investigations into the two remaining complaints had been delayed but would be completed shortly. The two complaints would then be considered by the Monitoring Officer, the Chairman of the Committee and an Independent Person.

 

One of the Code of Conduct complaints related to a Member’s handling of a planning matter. The Committee considered the benefits of providing additional guidance to ensure greater clarity on the way Members dealt with planning matters and what residents could expect when raising planning issues with local Members.

 

RESOLVED That:

 

1)     The update report on Code of Conduct complaints be noted;

 

2)     The Committee consider draft Member/Public guidance on the handling of Planning matters at the next meeting in March 2019.