Agenda item

To determine any Applications for Dispensations which may be made by CBC Councillors. 

The Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer introduced the report which had been circulated with the agenda.  The report was seeking determination by this committee of applications made by Members of the Borough Council who were also Gloucestershire County Councillors in order that they could participate in the business to be conducted at the Extraordinary meeting of the Council on 9 April 2014. The special meeting would be considering a report recommending approval of the pre-submission Joint Core Strategy (JCS). The plan included provision for housing and employment land some of which was currently owned by Gloucestershire County Council.

The Democratic Services Manager confirmed that all dual members had been contacted by e-mail by the Borough Solicitor and five dispensation requests had been received. Those for Councillors Tim Harman, Bernard Fisher, Klara Sudbury, Simon Wheeler and Chris Coleman had been circulated with the Applications for Dispensation report. A further reminder had been issued by email by the Borough Solicitor on Monday 7 April and Councillors Suzanne Williams and Colin Hay had now submitted their applications which were circulated at the meeting. Councillor Paul McLain had given his apologies for the Council meeting and no response had been received from Councillor David Prince.

The Borough Solicitor referred members to the potential grounds for granting dispensation which were set out in paragraph 2.1 of the report. She confirmed that all the dispensations being considered by the committee today were on the basis of 2.1c) i.e granting the dispensation is in the interests of persons living in the authority's area. Her advice as Monitoring Officer would be to grant the dispensations.

She emphasised that the Standards Committee had absolute discretion but should be able to justify any decision they made. Should they be minded to grant dispensations, they were also required to determine the period for whichthe dispensation has affect. As set out in paragraph 3.2, the period specified may not exceed four years. She advised Members that in view of the Borough elections in May 2014, the committee may want to take this into account when setting the period.

Regarding any possible late applications, she invited members to consider delegating authority to the Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer for granting dispensations to the one outstanding county council member submitting a late application provided it was on the same principles agreed today. A Member questioned the need for this delegation as they felt all councillors had been advised of the deadline. The Monitoring Officer suggested that it was in the interest of the public that their elected councillor should be able to participate in the debate. Another member suggested that some elected members were abusing the goodwill of Council in their attendance and not adhering to deadlines.  The Monitoring Officer advised that this was a matter of political group discipline for the group leaders to raise in their groups.

A Member referred to another member of Council who had made their views on the JCS very clear in the public arena and also held a position in a local action group. They questioned whether that member should have declared an interest and applied for a dispensation and whether it was appropriate for them to participate in the meeting.

The Monitoring Officer reminded Members that in order to preclude participation by the Member, an interest under the Code of Conduct included one where there would be either a financial affect to the Member or to the body to which the Member had been appointed to or related to an application for consent or approval of some kind. Neither of those conditions would apply in this particular case. She reminded Members that the Standards Committee only dealt with Code of Conduct issues. Predetermination and bias was outside the remit of this committee and a challenge of this nature could result in the decision itself being challenged. She advised that she had issued a detailed advice note to members of Council on both matters.

An Independent Member, commented that any member of the public might find it incredible that a one-issue Councillor who clearly would have made their views very clear in their manifesto, could then be disqualified from a council debate on that very issue.

In response the Monitoring Officer advised that one of the difficulties with the new act was that there was no directly relevant case law post 2011. This was potentially due to the threshold for policy matters being set so high.

Upon a vote it was resolved unanimously that

1. The applications for dispensation for Councillors Coleman,Fisher, Harman, Hay, Sudbury, Wheeler and Williams should be granted until 22 May 2014 to enable them to participate in the matter of the approval of the pre-submission  Joint Core Strategy which will be considered at a  meeting of the Council on 9 April 2014.
2. Authority be delegated to the Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer to determine any similar applications for dispensations for the same period