Agenda and minutes

We elected Mr. Trevor Auld as Chairman of Standards Committee.

We appointed Mr. R. Stow as Vice-Chair of Standarsds Committee.

None

The minutes of the meeting held on 19^th March 2018 were confirmed and signed by the Chair.

The Monitoring Officer clarified that the Shared Resource Service has a business side to it, comprising MCC, BGCBC and MCC.  This is a commercial profit making body and profits are reinvested in the SRS.

Mr. Stow asked that a letter be written to the Adjudication Panel commenting on the fact that in their Annual Report they did not name Councillors, whereas they have been individually named in previous decision reports. It was suggested that where Councillors are named in tribunal reports, they should be named in the annual report.

Standards Committee were presented with a report to provide information on the number and types of complaints, comments and compliments received and dealt with from 1 April 2016 until 31 March 2017.  The 2017/18 report would be brought to Committee at a later stage.

The report also summarises the number of Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests received by the Council during this period.

We heard there had been 85 complaints, of which 13 were formal complaints.

There had been 153 comments, and 168 compliments.

In terms of resource, the officer explained that alongside the Customer Service Manager, there is one part time administrator. 

Complaints are received both verbally and in writing.

Social Services complaints are dealt with separately under the Social Services complaints procedure. 63 complaints were received, 81 comments and 118 compliments were made about the service.

We noted the report.

The Committee received the Draft Annual Governance Statement 2017/18.

The report will be presented to Audit Committee for approval.

The Chief Internal Auditor presented the report and welcomed questions from the Committee.

Members welcomed the opportunity to comment. 

A suggestion was made to add a sentence to paragraph 20 around training, explaining that new councillors received induction training immediately after the May 2017 election.  Also on paragraph 21, add data from the Public Services Ombudsman for 2017/18, and the few years previous.

The Committee noted the report.

The Monitoring Officer advised Members of the upcoming Standards Conference, and encouraged attendance of this worthwhile event.

Members were advised of an upcoming Adjudication Panel Wales hearing to take place at Cwmbran Magistrates Court regarding former councillor, Mr. G. Down.  Members were welcome to attend.

We noted the date and time of next meeting.

Members took the opportunity to thank Mr. R. Tranter for his hard work with the Committee, and wished him well in his new appointment.