Councillors watchdog rules details of its meetings shouldn’t be made public

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

A group for those who chair a councillors watchdog has ruled details of its meetings shouldn’t be made public.

The shadowy National Forum for the Chairs of Standards Committees doesn’t want the public to be able to read reports discussed by the chairs of the committees which have the power to issue bans to elected councillors.

All of Wales’ 22 local authorities must have a standards committee responsible for overseeing the conduct of county councillors and those who volunteer for local town and community councils.

The committees are made up of a small number of elected councillors and appointed independent members and can ban elected members if they have been found to have breached their council’s code of conduct.

Bans

Bans, for a set period of time, mean an elected councillor isn’t able to take part in council meetings, and represent their constituents, or carry out official duties as a councillor.

Peter Easy, the unelected independent member of Monmouthshire council’s standards committee, presented a brief report from the national forum to its September 16 meeting.

He told the committee the national forum is keen its notes aren’t shared in detail with the public, and should be for the eyes of the powerful committee members only.

He said: “There was a discussion whether those notes should be public or private. I think there’s enough discussion at the forum for them to wish that the notes should be off the record and not on the record. They are very happy for the notes to be shared with standards committees but they would be unhappy to find them put into the public domain.”

Choice

Mr Easy said the committee, in future, would “have a choice” whether he shares notes from the forum with the committee privately or they are discussed in a “closed session”. Councils can normally only deny members of the public access to meetings, and reports, if they are discussing sensitive financial information or personal information relating to an individual.

Notes, produced by Mr Easy, from the forum’s June meeting mostly concerned advice to members, and officers, to properly record and detail decisions related to complaints a member had fallen foul of a code of conduct to assist the Adjudication Panel for Wales’ written appeals process.