Agenda item

Mr P Gilroy, Chief Executive, Mr A J King, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Corporate Support and External Affairs, and Ms A Beer, Director of Personnel and Development, will attend the meeting from 10.30 am to 11.30 am to answer Members’ questions on this item.

The Chairman introduced the item and explained that part of consultation document, that relating to the Members Code of Conduct had been discussed by the Standards Committee and the Selection and Member Services Committee.  The potential employee code of conduct had not yet been before any committee and the closing date for consultation responses was 24 December 2008. 

Mr King stated that the most appropriate place for the proposed employee code to be considered was the Personnel Committee, and that he had already put in place arrangements for an extraordinary meeting of that Committee, and he was sure that the Chairman would be very happy for other Members to attend that meeting.  Mr King also stated that having read the consultation document he thought that KCC’s existing Code of Conduct for Officers was better than what was being proposed by the DCLG. 

Mr Smyth was pleased that the Personnel Committee had been arranged to consider the proposed Employees Code of Conduct.  He stated that it was strange that the Members Code and the Employees Code had been treated so differently.  He would have expected the whole consultation document to have been considered in parallel.  The Chairman stated that he had concerns relating to an internal audit report which went to the Standards Committee and the Audit and Governance Committee approximately a year ago, which made reference to the uneven nature of the existing register of officers’ interests in the different directorates and the need to review those.  A framework was contained with the constitution, but it was not obvious to the public and not obvious to staff as some registers had not had any entries for years and this was a concern.  Mr King stated that he was as concerned as the Chairman about this issue, there should not be any division between the political parties over this and the interest of ensuring the integrity of officers is the responsibility of all Members of the Council.

Mr Cope stated that employees should not have a separate Code of Conduct and that it should be included within the terms of employment.  Mr King confirmed that the Code of Conduct was part of the terms of conditions of officers. 

Mr Simmonds asked Mr King whether any analysis of the cost of responding to the multiplicity of consultation documents had been undertaken.  Mr King confirmed that KCC only responded to consultations where the Council had an interest, and Mr King offered to arrange a briefing for Members on the way in which KCC tackled consultation and the way in which the protocol worked. 

Mrs Dean stated that she was aware that there were some changes being proposed to the Officer – Member Code of Conduct and she asked if the re-drafted proposals would be ready for discussion at the Personnel Committee next week because of the synergy between the documents.  Mr Sass confirmed that he would liaise with Ms Beer outside of the meeting and if the paper was ready it would certainly go to the Personnel Committee next week, otherwise it would be on the agenda for the next scheduled meeting of the Personnel Committee.

Mr Northey stated that the Codes of Conduct shouldn’t be too prescriptive, the standards of elected members and officials was high, to avoid any sense of disrepute. 

The Chairman stated that any interests of officers should be available publicly, to help avoid any suggestion of improper interests.  It was thought that it would be useful to extend the code of conduct to the Fire Service. 

Mr King said it would be appropriate for him to remind the Chief Executive and officers of the points made and it was certainly not the case that Members did not trust officers, the Chairman concurred with this stated and confirmed that the it was a case of protecting the officers in their work. 

RESOLVED:

1)     Ms Beer and Mr King be thanked for attending the meeting to answer Members’ questions.

2)     Members noted Mr King’s welcome but belated offer that the proposed draft response to the DCLG consultation paper on a proposed model code of conduct for local government employees would be reported to an extraordinary meeting of the Personnel Committee.

1)     Members welcomed Mr King’s offer of a briefing on the way in which consultations are tackled by Kent County Council.