Standards and Ethics

Everyone is entitled to be confident that the people elected to represent them on their local councils are committed to the highest standards of behaviour. South Hams District Council is committed to promoting and maintaining the highest standards of conduct and corporate governance. We support the “Nolan” General Principles of Public Life:

	Selflessness
1	Members should serve only the public interest and should never improperly confer an advantage or disadvantage on any person.
	Honesty and Integrity
2	Members should not place themselves in situations where their honesty and integrity may be questioned, should not behave improperly and should on all occasions avoid the appearance of such behaviour.
	Objectivity
3	Members should make decisions on merit, including when making appointments, awarding contracts or recommending individuals for rewards or benefits.
	Accountability
4	Members should be accountable to the public for their actions and the manner in which they carry out their responsibilities, and should cooperate fully and honestly with any scrutiny appropriate to their particular office.
	Openness
5	Members should be as open as possible about their actions and those of their authority, and should be prepared to give reasons for those actions.
	Personal Judgement
6	Members may take account of the views of others, including their political groups, but should reach their own conclusions on the issues before them and act in accordance with those conclusions
	Respect for Others
7	Members should promote equality by not discriminating unlawfully against any person, and by treating people with respect regardless of their race, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability. They should respect the impartiality and integrity of the authority's statutory officers, and its other employees.
	Duty to Uphold the Law
8	Members should uphold the law and, on all occasions, act in accordance with the trust that the public is entitled to place in them.
	Stewardship
9	Members should do whatever they are able to do to ensure that their authorities use their resources prudently and in accordance with the law.
	Leadership
10	Members should promote and support these principles by leadership, and by example, and should act in a way that secures or preserves public confidence.

At South Hams District Council, every elected Member (“Councillor”) has signed up to observe a code of conduct which governs their behaviour whilst in office. It sets out things they must and must not do whilst acting in their official capacity. Those things are summarised below

The Council’s adopted Code of Conduct for Members can be seen by clicking here. It is adapted from a model code drafted by the Government in the Local Authorities (Model Code of Conduct) Order 2007 (SI 2007 No. 1159). All local authorities had to adopt a code by 31 October 2007 and if they failed to do so, the model code applies in default.

Town and Parish Councillors

Town and parish councillors have to observe the same code as district councillors. Each town or parish council was obliged to adopt a code of conduct and councillors have to undertake to observe it, just as district councillors do. But as some provisions of the model code are optional for town and parish councils, they are not all the same. If you are concerned about whether a town or parish councillor has behaved properly you should contact the clerk to the council and ask to see a copy of their adopted code of conduct.

What follows applies to district, town and parish councillors alike.

The Code of Conduct

The Code provides that when a councillor is conducting council business – that is to say, amongst other things attending council meetings, engaging in correspondence of any kind, or acting as a community representative - they must:

Treat other people with respect
Not discriminate unlawfully against anyone
Not bully anyone
Not compromise the work of council officers
Not provide references for candidates for appointments to jobs with the council
Not disclose confidential information
Not bring the council into disrepute
Not use their position as a councillor improperly to confer an advantage or disadvantage upon themselves or anyone else
Use council resources properly
Have regard to officers’ advice
Register personal interests and declare them when relevant at council meetings
Not participate in meetings when they have personal interests which are such that ordinary people would think they could influence – “prejudice” - the councillor’s judgment of the public interest.

Registers of personal interests

The registers of personal interests of district, town and parish councillors are available for public inspection. They are held on paper at the Council’s offices at Follaton House, Plymouth Road, Totnes, Devon TQ9 5NE. They are not available electronically. If you wish to inspect them please contact the Monitoring Officer at that address (telephone: 01803 861234) or at monitoring.officer@southhams.gov.uk .

Enforcing the Code: The Standards Committee

There is a system for bringing to account councillors who behave badly. District, Town and Parish councillors in the South Hams are overseen by the District Council’s Standards Committee under the aegis of the national body, now called Standards for England. The County Council and the Dartmoor National Park Authority have their own Standards Committees.

Every county, unitary and district council must by law set up a Standards Committee whose functions are:

promoting and maintaining high standards of conduct by the members and co-opted members of the authority,
assisting members and co-opted members of the authority to observe the authority’s code of conduct;
advising the authority on the adoption or revision of a code of conduct,
monitoring the operation of the authority’s code of conduct, and
advising, training or arranging to train members and co-opted members of the authority on matters relating to the authority’s code of conduct.

Since May 2008, the Standards Committee also assesses and determines complaints about District, Town and Parish councillors in the South Hams. See below

The Standards Committee for the South Hams comprises two District Councillors, one Town Councillor and two Parish Councillors from councils within the district of South Hams, and three independent Members, one of whom is the Chairman. Each of them serves for four years although their terms are staggered. The current members are:

MEMBER	DESIGNATION	TERM ENDS
Mr Michael Winterton	Independent	30 September 2013
Mr Roy Allison	Independent	30 September 2013
Mr John O'Connell	Independent	31 August 2013
Cllr Bryan Carson	South Hams District Councillor	10 May 2012
Cllr Judy Westacott MBE	South Hams District Councillor	10 May 2012
Cllr Phillip Dredge	Parish Councillor - Ivybridge Town Council	31 March 2013
Cllr Stuart Dunham	Parish Councillor - Halwell & Moreleigh Parish Council	31 March 2013

Breaches of the Code

If you think that a councillor has behaved badly enough for it to be a breach of one or more provisions of the Code of Conduct, you can make a complaint. The complaint will be considered by the Assessment Sub-Committee of the Council’s Standards Committee (at least 3 members).

If the complaint is considered serious, it may be investigated and if it is found that there may have been a breach, the findings of the investigations may be submitted to a formal hearing of the Standards Committee at which the councillor concerned has the right to respond. If it is less serious, or the Assessment Sub-Committee considers that a full investigation is not the most appropriate response, it may direct the Monitoring Officer to take some other action (such as arranging conciliation, or training) to resolve the complaint. It is no longer possible to refer the most serious cases to the national body Standards for England, as that body was abolished in January 2012.

Please note that the Sub-Committee can only deal with complaints about the behaviour of an individual Councillor (or Councillors). It can’t deal with general complaints about a council as a whole, nor can it deal with complaints about things that are not covered by the Members’ Code of Conduct. You should specify which provision or provisions of the Code you think has or have been breached when you write in. If you can’t decide, the Monitoring Officer can advise you. There is also guidance in the complaints form (see below).

If you have a complaint about something that South Hams District Council has done that is not covered by the Code, you may use the ordinary complaints procedure form.

Complaints about the actions of town or parish councils should be addressed to the clerk to the council in question.