Issue - meetings

To consider revising the Member/Officer Protocol as part of the Committee’s rolling review of the Constitution.

That the amended Protocol be recommended to Council for adoption.

The Monitoring Officer presented a report to consider updates to the Member/Officer Protocol as part of the Committee’s rolling review of the Constitution.  In addition to reflecting changes in working practices, the proposed amendments took account of recent work on the Flintshire Standard, the review of handling Member queries and the outcome of the Case Tribunal recently reported to the Committee.  Once agreed, the proposed changes would be reported to Constitution & Democratic Services Committee for recommendation to Council for adoption.

In response to a question from Councillor Heesom, the Monitoring Officer referred to the recently updated Officers’ Code of Conduct which was available within the Constitution.  Any Member with a concern could raise it with the officer - or their line manager who was required to address any potential breaches against the standards.  As employees had the right for disciplinary issues to be handled in confidence, the Member could only be given a high-level summary of the outcome as feedback.

The following amendments to the protocol were agreed:

·         Section 7.3: Remove ‘to’ from the first sentence.  ‘Lead Members’ to be removed and include reference to Chairs of Audit, Licensing and Planning to reflect the varying levels of support provided.  No capital letter needed for ‘services’ in the final sentence.

·         Capital letter for ‘Members’ in sections 5.3, 7.2, 9.1, 9.2 and 10.3.

·         Section 9.2: insert ‘key’ before ‘decisions under delegated powers’.

·         Section 14.2: should read ‘in relation to’.

The recommendations were moved by Councillor Woolley and seconded by Phillipa Earlam.

RESOLVED:

That the amended Protocol be recommended to Council for adoption.