The Standards Committee elects Councillor …. to be the Chair for the Council Year 2013/14.

The Standards Committee elected Councillor Gill Sanders to be the Chair for the Council Year 2013/14.

The Standards Committee elects Councillor …. to be the Vice Chair for the Council Year 2013/14.

The Standards Committee elects Councillor Mike Gotch to be the Vice Chair for the Council Year 2013/14.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Val Smith, Godfrey Cole, Jill McCleery and Ben Simpson.

There were no declarations of interest made.

The Head of Law and Governance has submitted a report to update the Committee on Standards matters

Officer recommendation: That the Committee note the report.

The Monitoring Officer submitted a report (previously circulated and now appended) providing an update on various Standards issues.

Ben Simpson had provided feedback on the worthwhileness of the course he attended but had also reported that his feedback to the workshop organisers had appeared not to have been properly acknowledged.

The Committee resolved to note the report and asked that the Monitoring Officer raise the issue of the missing feedback with the event organiser.

The Head of Law and Governance has submitted a report which presents the findings of a joint review of the Oxfordshire Code.

Officer recommendation: That the findings of the joint review be accepted and that Council be recommended to make no changes to the Oxfordshire Code.

The Monitoring Officer submitted a report (previously circulated and now appended) on the findings of a joint review of the Oxfordshire members’ code of conduct. The 5 Monitoring Officers in the county had reviewed the code of conduct and had concluded that no amendments to the code were required at the present time. The reasoning for that collective conclusion was set out in the report.

A new register of interest form would be circulated to enable members to voluntarily declare non-pecuniary interests if they wished and further guidance would be sent out clarifying members responsibilities to declare securities and political party membership.

The Committee queried the reasons why the review group felt no gifts and hospitality register should be maintained. However depending on the size and frequency of the gift(s) they would become a pecuniary interest and would require disclosure under other sections of the code.

The Committee resolved to accept the findings of the joint review and recommended to Council that no changes to the Oxfordshire Code be made in particular that no requirements be introduced to register and declare non-pecuniary interests.

Minutes from 14 December 2012 and 27 February 2013

Recommendation: That the minutes of the meeting held on 14 December 2012 be APPROVED as a true and accurate record.

Recommendation: That the minutes of the meeting held on 27 February 2013 be APPROVED as a true and accurate record.

The following amendments to be made to the minutes of 14 December 2012:

Under minute 6 Powers and Duties of Standards Committee

Paragraph 3 – the word “family” to be changed to “household”

Paragraph 4 – the sentence to read “She queried why the investigation was taking so long out of concern for the human rights of the member investigated”

The Committee resolved to APPROVE the amended minutes of the meeting held on 14 December 2012 as a true and accurate record.

The Committee resolved to APPROVE the minutes of the meeting held on 27 February 2013 as a true and accurate record.

9 March 2012

The Committee noted the next meeting was scheduled for 14 March 2014.