Issue - meetings

That the report be agreed.

The Democracy & Governance Manager presented a report to agree the annual update of the Code of Corporate Governance which formed part of the Council’s Constitution.  There were a greater number of amendments to be made to the Code this year to reflect updates arising from the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 and changes to the Council’s administration as a result of the May elections.  In addition, a paragraph detailing the Corporate Business Continuity Plan and Mission Critical Service Plans had been included.

The Chair said that the Code included recognition of ‘the need of Members to be apprised of local issues affecting their Ward including public meetings and consultation exercises’ and referred to a specific issue which had been raised by another Council Member.  The Democracy & Governance Manager said that the Protocol on Member/Officer Relations placed the onus on officers to advise local Members of events within their wards.  The Head of ICT & Customer Services was aware of the example mentioned by the Chair and explained that all Members had been advised that communications sent to Flintshire email addresses could not be automatically forwarded to private home email addresses due to the Council’s ICT security policies.

Following a query by Councillor G.H. Bateman, the Internal Audit Manager explained that it was part of the Committee’s responsibility to keep the Whistleblowing Policy up-to-date and that this had been brought to the Committee previously.  The Democracy & Governance Manager advised that pursuant to a previous decision of the Committee, he would be carrying out work on awareness raising of issues within the Constitution, including the Whistleblowing Policy.

RESOLVED:

That the report be agreed.