Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 1, at the Council Offices, Southfields, Loughborough. View directions

Contact: Democratic Services 

Items
No. Item

1.

Appointment of Chair

The Panel will appoint a Chair from amongst its members.

Minutes:

RESOLVEDthatCouncillor Tassell be appointedChairfor themeeting.

 

2.

Disclosures of Pecuniary and Personal Interests

Minutes:

No disclosures of interests were made.

3.

Determination of Complaints of a Breach of the Members' Code of Conduct of Quorn Parish Council by Councillor Andrew Brown pdf icon PDF 126 KB

The Panel is asked to determine complaints of potential breaches of the Members’ Code of Conduct of Quorn Parish Council (the Parish Council).  A report of the Monitoring Officer setting out details of the complaints and the pre-hearing process is attached.

 

This report includes an exempt Annex C, circulated to members.  If it is necessary for reference to be made to information contained within the annex, members of the public will be excluded for that part of the meeting on the grounds that it will involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

In accordance with the procedure for dealing with complaints, the Panel was asked to determine the complaints of a potential breach of the Members’ Code of Conduct of Quorn Parish Council as set out in the report of the Monitoring Officer, and to decide whether they amounted to a breach of the Code of Conduct by Councillor Brown, and if so, whether it felt it was appropriate to recommend the imposition of sanctions to the Parish Council.

 

              Administration of the Panel

 

The Chair explained the order of proceedings and all present confirmed they understood the procedure.  It was established that nobody present was aware of any interests or other reason which could prejudice the ability of the Panel to hold a fair hearing and make a sound determination on the matters in question. 

 

It was confirmed that the Investigating Officer and Councillor Brown would not be calling witnesses and that Councillor Brown would be representing himself and that he was happy to proceed on this basis.

 

The Monitoring Officer stated that having sought the views of the Investigating Officer and Councillor Brown the hearing would be held in public.  However, he recommended that the detailed witness statements be considered as exempt due to the nature of comments made about other Quorn Parish Council staff, and that if the Investigating Officer and Councillor Brown wished to refer to witness statements that they let the Chair know in advance so the hearing could go into exempt session.

 

Summary of Proceedings

 

The Investigating Officer, Mr Alex Oram, presented his report and drew the Panel’s attention to the following:

 

·         that Councillor Brown had cooperated and assisted the Investigating Officer throughout the investigation and had made his comments in good faith.

·         it was important to consider the long-standing issues, primarily relating to horticultural matters at Quorn Parish Council, which had led Councillor Brown to have serious concerns.

·         that prior to the council meeting on 6th November 2018 Councillor Brown had tried to address the issues with two Chairs of Quorn Parish Council and in the Investigating Officer’s opinion was let down by their inaction, although this did not give him the right to make his comments that were the subject of the complaints in the manner he did.

·         that Councillor Brown had agreed to abide by Members’ Code of Conduct of Quorn Parish Council and by making his statements during a public meeting and by attacking the clerk’s integrity and reputation where she had no prior notice or the right of response, he had breached the Parish Council’s Code of Conduct, sections 2(i) and 2 (j).

 

The Panel Members and Councillor Brown had no questions for the Investigating Officer.

 

Councillor Brown presented his case, and drew the Panel’s attention to the following:

 

·         that the purpose of a Members’ Code of Conduct was to contribute to bringing about good governance, and that this in turn, influenced the organisation to improve the service of the Parish Council.

·         he had tried to address the issue which  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.