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City of York Council |
Committee Minutes |
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Meeting |
Joint Standards Committee - Assessments Sub-Committee. |
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Date |
23 January 2025 |
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Present |
Cllrs Fisher and Pavlovic (City Council Members) Cllr Waudby (Parish Council Member) Joe Leigh (Independent Member) |
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Officers In Attendance |
Frances Harrison (Deputy Monitoring Officer)
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6. Appointment of Chair (5:45pm)
Resolved: That Cllr Pavlovic be appointed as Chair of the meeting.
7. Declarations of Interest (5:45pm)
Members were asked to declare at this point in the meeting any disclosable pecuniary interests or other registerable interests they might have in respect of business on the agenda, if they had not already done so in advance on the Register of Interests.
Both Cllr Fisher and Parish Cllr Waudby declared that they were members of the Liberal Democrat Party, as was the Subject Member in this case.
8. Exclusion of Press and Public (5:46pm)
Resolved: That the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the private reports at Agenda Item 5 (A Code of Conduct Complaint received in respect of a City of York Councillor), on the grounds that they contain information relating to individuals and information likely to reveal the identity of individuals, which is classed as exempt under paragraphs 1 and 2 of Schedule 12A to Section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006.
[Note: following the above resolution, the Deputy Monitoring Officer confirmed that she had nothing further to add in respect of the public reports in the agenda papers, and the remainder of the meeting took place in private session.]
9. Code of Conduct Complaint Received in Respect of a City of York Councillor (5:46pm)
Members considered a report from the Deputy Monitoring Officer which set out a Code of Conduct complaint received in respect of a City of York Councillor.
The Subject Member had raised an issue in relation to procedural propriety, namely whether the complaint was properly constituted and accepted by the Monitoring Officer. This was dealt with by the panel as a preliminary matter.
The panel members considered that the complainant’s email clearly raised an allegation of disrespect contrary to the Member Code of Conduct which the Monitoring Officer was right to accept and invite members to consider under the adopted procedure.
The complainant felt their reputation had been impugned by the Subject Member, whilst the Subject Member denied any personal attack.
Details of the complaint were presented in the private report.
Members were asked to decide whether to:
A. rule that the complaint is out of scope, or
B. rule that the complaint is in scope and choose either to:
i) take no further action
ii) seek to resolve the matter informally, or
iii) refer the matter for investigation.
Having considered all the information provided, and the advice of the Independent Person at the meeting, it was
Resolved: That Option B(ii) be approved.
Reason: The assessment sub-committee concluded that the matters complained of were capable of constituting breaches of the Member Code of Conduct and the complaint was consequently in scope.
Members however made no findings and recommended that the matter be resolved informally.
Cllr Michael Pavlovic, Chair
[The meeting started at 5.45 pm and finished at 6.50 pm].