Meeting documents

1

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

Dr John Griffiths declared an interest and left the meeting prior to the commencement of the discussion on item 2 of the Agenda.

2

COMPLAINT AGAINST MEMBERS.

A report by the Monitoring Officer together with ten appendices regarding      three complaints filed on  9 October 2000 by Mr J. A. Jones was submitted for consideration. The complaints were filed against Councillor O. Gwyn Jones, Councillor Richard Jones OBE and Councillor G. O. Parry MBE.   In essence, the complainant, J. A. Jones of Nantgaredig, Llangwyllog alleged that:-

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the Executive Committee, on 26 July 2000, reached a decision that the Council should settle employment Tribunal proceedings brought against it by the Complainant;

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the three Councillors each took part at that meeting and its decision in breach of Paragraphs 5,6,7 and 9 of the National Code of Local Government Conduct because each of them had an interest which they ought to have declared and which would have precluded them from discussing the matter and participating in the decision, and

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the nature of each Councillor's interest was that there were outstanding complaints against him which were before the (then) Monitoring Officer; each Councillor wished to avoid these becoming public; the settlement of the Tribunal case prevented the complainant from making these matters public.

The Monitoring Officer presented her report on the complaint and updated the Committee as to the current position.

The Monitoring Officer indicated there were several further matters to be noted by the Standards Committee before considering the detailed report. These would be  presented as chronologically and as clearly as possible.

First, the Monitoring Officer made reference to an appendix document which had inadvertently been omitted from the bundle with the report but had been sent as an additional document. This was a statement by Councillor O.G.Jones to Council on 2 October 2000 and was to be inserted between pages 25 and 26 of the appendix documents. Committee members confirmed they had received this document.

The Monitoring Officer then referred to the fact that in paragraph 7.2 of the report, the reference to Section 101 of the Local Government Act 1972 should be a reference to paragraph 4(2) of Part 1 of Schedule 12 of that Act. Neither provision had in fact changed, and this made no difference to the report of advice, but was simply referred to for the sake of clarity.

The Monitoring Officer also advised the Committee that on 12 August the District Auditor had confirmed that an appeal to the High Court had been lodged against his findings. The Monitoring Officer clarified paragraph 6 of the report to this extent, whilst confirming that the report, which stated no appeal had been lodged, had been correct at the time it was written. The existence of the appeal would not affect the advice that no grounds appeared to exist for further deferral of the matters.

The Monitoring Officer confirmed that Councillor E. Schofield had been in contact with her by telephone on 13 August, had attended an appointment on 14 August and had been in contact by telephone on 15 August. The Monitoring Officer explained that Councillor Schofield questioned in particular the lack of inclusion of some hand-written notes taken on 26 July 2000 as part of the report. On 14 August Councillor Schofield had brought in a number of documents which he went through and provided the Monitoring Officer with his views upon events leading to 26 July 2000 and on that day. He was however unwilling to leave those documents with the Monitoring Officer as she was unable to undertake that they would all be placed before the Standards Committee until she had examined them to check their relevance and whether there were      any reasons why any of them might not be  legally capable of being disclosed.

The Monitoring Officer provided the Committee with copies of a letter she had written to Councillor Schofield on 15 August, at his request and in reply to the four points which he had raised. This was read out to the Committee.

The Monitoring Officer further confirmed that Councillor Schofield had telephoned on the morning of this meeting, 19 August, and had provided a written reply at approximately 4 p.m. that afternoon. A copy of this was also provided to the Committee and was read out. By way of response, the Monitoring Officer accepted that

Councillor Schofield had on 14 August read from various documents, but he had only provided her with one document, which would be referred to shortly. It was confirmed that the only documents not before the Committee were the hand-written notes, and an explanation for this had already been provided in the report. The Monitoring Officer believed she had included the comments of Councillor Schofield and Councillor Medi as far as they had been provided in written format, and had also referred to the telephone calls and meeting which had occurred.

The Monitoring Officer reported that she had received a faxed letter from the complainant on 18 August, which was also provided to the Committee. This was also read out.  The Monitoring Officer stated that she believed she had already answered the points raised and confirmed that she had aimed to present the Committee with a balanced report in good faith with no inclination or predisposition towards any party involved.

The Monitoring Officer then stated that Councillor Schofield had delivered a statement on 18 August, which was signed by 9 Councillors and was a declaration that they had heard Councillor G .O. Parry and Councillor J. Meirion Davies make certain remarks on 1 October 2000. Copies of the two page document were distributed to the Committee members and then read out.

The Monitoring Officer advised, regarding the question of whether there ought to be further deferral or delay, that though the Committee might need a short time to assimilate the information just given, she believed there was no reason to alter the advice already given i.e. that no further reason was apparent. It was recorded in the report  that she had been unable to secure consent to use any of the District Auditor's Statement of Reasons, and though an appeal had been lodged it should be pointed out that :

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the Court in such proceedings would normally be reluctant to interfere in decisions of fact made by an arbitrator in the first instance and

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even if an appeal against the decision succeeded, and the result was not      publicised in the form of a Court Order, whatever the outcome the Standards Committee would not be bound by it, nor would background documents be likely to be published as part of the decision. The District Auditor's findings would not n any case have bound the Standards Committee, though the Committee had decided to defer last September to take into account his view of events on 26 July 2000; it now transpired that due to the Audit Commission Act the decision could not be published, had this been known at the time it might have affected the decision to defer.

The Monitoring Officer summarised by advising the Committee that it needed to decide whether all or any of the complaints ought to proceed to a full hearing. Reasons should be given. As well as the matters raised in paragraph 8 of the report, the following needed to be taken into account:-

1)

whether the meeting of the 26th July 2000 was of a type in which a declaration of interest should have been made, bearing in mind Appendix 10, which set out the National Code and Supplementary Code applicable at the time;

2)

did any of the Councillors have an interest to declare?

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if so, what was the interest;

2)

if not, why not?

Members were given the opportunity to question the Monitoring Officer and to express their views as to whether the complaint should proceed to a hearing against the three Councillors. Members accordingly asked questions and expressed their views.

Following debate, and a proposal which was duly seconded, the Committee  RESOLVED by a majority not to proceed to a full hearing against Councillors O. Gwyn Jones, Richard Jones OBE and G. O. Parry MBE for the following reasons:-

i.

it was accepted that the evidence showed that the Acting Head of Legal Services was delegated to act, under an authority approved by the full Council which had not been withdrawn;

ii.

it was accepted that the note from Mr Fraser Urquhart QC supporting the      fact that the decision was an Officer decision was correct, and that the decision had been an Officer decision;

iii.

whilst the matter had been deferred because of the inquiries of the District Auditor, he had not submitted any further issues to the Standards Committee which required its consideration;

iv.

it was accepted that the meeting of members of the Executive Committee on 26 July 2000 could not have been legally in a position to have decided to settle the tribunal proceedings, and that this meeting was simply in the form of a consultation;

v.

having regard to all the evidence, there was no case for any of the three Councillors to answer.

DR.GWYNETH ROBERTS

                  CHAIR