Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were submitted from UllaKarin Clark and Richard Dolinski.

Paddy Haycocks (Independent Person) was also in attendance.

To confirm the Minutes of the Meeting held on 4 July 2018.

The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 4 July 2018 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive any declarations of interest.

There were no declarations of interest.

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

There were no public questions.

To answer any Member questions.

There were no Member questions.

To answer any questions from Parish/Town Councillors.

There were no questions from Parish or Town Councillors.

To consider an update on Code of Conduct complaints.

The Committee considered a report, set out at Agenda pages 7 to 12, which provided an update on new Code of Conduct complaints reported since the previous meeting of the Committee on 4 July 2018.

The report stated that five new complaints had been received in that period. Appendix A to the report provided a summary of the complaints. The complaints related to a range of issues including Member conduct at public meetings, comments on social media and a planning matter.

The report also gave details of the powers available to the Monitoring Officer to investigate and resolve complaints. Under the Council’s Constitution the Monitoring Officer had delegated authority to decide whether complaints:

a)        Could be resolved informally, e.g. by mediation;

b)        Required investigation;

c)         Should be referred to the Standards Committee;

d)        Did not require any further action to be taken.

Andrew Moulton, Monitoring Officer, confirmed that more detailed feedback would be provided to complainants and other interested parties in cases where no further action was to be taken.

The Committee considered any trends amongst the complaints and any training and/or communication issues arising. Members also considered any matters arising from the Member training session held before the meeting.

RESOLVED: That the update report on complaints and feedback on Code of Conduct issues be noted.