Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Trafford Town Hall, Talbot Road, Stretford, M32 0TH

Contact: Alexander Murray  Governance Officer

Items
No. Item

1.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE COMMITTEE INCLUDING THE APPOINTMENT OF CHAIR AND VICE CHAIR 2021/21 pdf icon PDF 14 KB

To note the Membership of the Standards Committee as agreed at the Annual Council Meeting held 26th May 2021.

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the Membership of the Committee be noted.

2.

TERMS OF REFERENCE 2021/22 pdf icon PDF 95 KB

To note the Terms of Reference of the Committee as agreed at the Annual Council Meeting held 26th May 2021.

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the Terms of Reference be noted.

3.

MINUTES pdf icon PDF 189 KB

To receive and, if so determined, to agree as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 25 March 2021.

Minutes:

Mr Griffiths noted a number of typos within the minutes and agreed to email them to the Governance Officer for correction.

 

RESOLVED: Following the corrections noted by Mr Griffiths that the minutes be agreed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

4.

CODE OF CONDUCT pdf icon PDF 157 KB

To receive a report from the Corporate Director of Governance and Community Strategy.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chair introduced the report and informed the Committee that the approach agreed at the last meeting had changed due to a delay in the release of guidance by the LGA. The Chair went over the advantages of adopting the code covered within the report and the differences between the Council’s current code and the model code. The Chair concluded his introduction by going over the recommendations of the report and voicing his support for adopting the model code.

 

The Deputy Monitoring Officer added that the main changes were around the gifts and hospitality and declarations of interest. The proposed next steps were to look at adjusting the code to suite Trafford’s requirements. Once the Trafford version was complete a further consultation exercise would be conducted. The Greater Manchester Chief Legal Officers were due to meet to discuss the code in the following week and those discussions would inform the Trafford version. The LGA had also contacted the Council expressing that they were aware of several errors within the code and that they would release an updated version.

 

Mr Goodman asked whether adjusting the code would affect the use of the supporting guidance. The Deputy Monitoring Officer responded that adjustments being proposed would not affect the relevance of the guidance.

 

Mr Rudden asked whether this adopted code would affect parish Councils. The Deputy Monitoring Officer responded that all Parish Councils could adopt Trafford’s code of conduct and it would be up to each one whether they decided to do so.

 

Councillor Myers asked how many local authorities had adopted the model code. The Deputy Monitoring Officer responded a few local authorities had adopted the code in full before the guidance came out, but it was not very many. It was not clear how many had adopted the code as no official figures had been released.

 

Mr Whiting raised some issues regarding specific wording within the document and the Deputy Monitoring Officer agreed to meet with him to discuss those points after the meeting.

 

Cllr Jerome asked whether it was being taken on across the Greater Manchester area. The Deputy Monitoring Officer response that some had considered the model code but were waiting for the Chief Legal Officers to consider the code before moving further as there could be Greater Manchester version.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the content of the report and the model code be noted.

2)    That the Committee agreed the proposed next steps.

5.

MONITORING OFFICERS REPORT

To receive a verbal update from the Monitoring Officer.

Minutes:

The Deputy Monitoring Officer informed the Committee that nothing had arisen to report since their last meeting.