The Committee received the report of the Monitoring Officer (MO) which outlined the Local Government Association (LGA) consultation on an updated draft model Code of Conduct (CoC) and this Council’s proposed response.

One of the outcomes of the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s (CSPL) report into local government ethical standards was a recommendation that an updated model CoC be created, providing consistency across England and to reflect the common expectations of the public regardless of geography or tier.  The LGA was tasked with creating an updated model CoC, in consultation with representative bodies of councillors and officers of all tiers of local government and launched a consultation which ran until 17 August 2020.  Members and the Council’s Independent Persons were invited to submit comments to the MO for inclusion in the report.

Following the close of the consultation and the issue of a final model CoC by the LGA, the Council could consider whether to adopt a new CoC, using the final LGA national model as a starting point.  The model CoC aimed to be concise, written in plain English and be understandable to Members, officers and the public.  It was designed to help set a framework for public and councillor interaction, emphasising the importance of civility.  A copy of the model CoC was attached to the report, together with the Council’s suggested response to the consultation questionnaire, which had been compiled in conjunction with the Council’s three Independent Persons, for Members’ consideration.

Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and the following points were noted during the discussion:

·       Members agreed that the response to question 7a on page 19 of the report be amended in order to convey the treating of people with civility as a general term and more specifically to treat others with ‘courtesy and respect’;

·       Members agreed to suggest removing the word ‘excessive’ from the sentence under the heading of ‘Civility’ on page 6 of the report, ‘You should not subject individuals, groups of people or organisations to unreasonable or excessive personal attack’;

·       the obligation ‘Not bullying or harassing any person’ had been marked as ‘To a moderate extent’ in question 4 on page 18, as the protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010 had not been included in the definition; and

·       Members agreed to change the three obligations in question 4 on page 18 marked as ‘a moderate extent’ to ‘a great extent’ and for comments to be included which addressed their concerns raised about the missing characteristics within the definitions.

Feedback from the questionnaire would help the LGA develop a final draft to be reviewed by the LGA’s Executive Board before being presented to the next LGA General Assembly in the Autumn of 2020.  A further report would be made to the Audit and Standards Committee in December 2020 when consideration would be given to the final model CoC and whether or not this Council should introduce a new CoC of conduct based on the model CoC.

RESOLVED:That: this Council’s response to the LGA’s consultation on the model Code of Conduct as set out at Appendix 2 to the report be agreed as amended and shared with East Sussex County Council.