Issue - meetings

That the Committee notes the judgement of the Case Tribunal and shares with Councillors any messages or lessons arising from the decision that it considers appropriate.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer introduced a report to provide details of the decision of the Adjudication Panel for Wales in respect of the Monmouthshire County Council case reported in Issue 18 of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales Casebook as requested by the Committee. 

                        The Deputy Monitoring Officer drew attention to a typographical error in the recommendation of the report and said the wording should read: “and shares with Councillors any messages or lessons”.

                        The Deputy Monitoring Officer provided background information and said the complaint had arisen from three emails sent by a Councillor to the Chief Executive of Monmouthshire County Council in relation to a Council resource issue and had included egregious remarks about homosexuality.  He explained that the case had involved two issues which had made it complex, as detailed in the report, and the Case Tribunal had to make findings in respect of six alleged breaches of the Code regarding six particular comments made in the two emails sent by the Councillor to the Chief Executive. The Deputy Monitoring Officer said the alleged breaches were summarised in the report together with the findings that were made by the Case Tribunal in terms of breach of the Code.  The report also summarised the findings on sanction in accordance with the recently adopted sanctions guidance.  The full decision was appended to the report. 

                        The Monitoring Officer drew attention to the reference in the report of the decision of the  APW in 2009 regarding a Councillor of Barmouth Town Council. Commenting on the case the Monitoring Officer advised that Flintshire County Council had a policy whereby, for example, if an Officer’s performance was criticised by a Member it was brought to the attention of  the Officer’s line manager to be dealt with in private and not made public

            RESOLVED:

That the Committee notes the judgement of the Case Tribunal and shares with Councillors any messages or lessons arising from the decision that it considers appropriate.