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Introduction to Standards for England A short leaflet detailing the key elements of our work and operation. |
About us
We believe in principled local politics. Working with local authorities, their monitoring officers and local standards committees, it’s our job to champion and promote high standards of conduct among our local politicians. We want to make sure the public are in no doubt that standards and principles matter to local government.
We work closely with local authorities to assess, identify and deal with the most material risks to local democracy.
We safeguard local standards and champion accountability in local government partnerships.
In order to ensure the success of a fair and proportionate local standards framework, we monitor the standards performance of local authorities, not only to identify and respond to failings in the system, but also to recognise and celebrate high standards.
As a centre of expertise in ethical governance, we influence policy and help developing democracies in the design of the local standards elements of their respective governance models.
We continually develop our services, skills and products to respond to the needs of those we support, and apply best practice in the fi eld of regulation.
Our advice is regularly sought and appreciated. We deal with over 300 enquiries from members, officers and members of the public every month. 80% of councils think we keep them well informed.
Our history
The Code of Conduct and the Standards Board for England were introduced in the 2000 Local Government Act, in response to the Nolan report and high profile standards failings in local government.
In the early days flaws in both legislation and administration attracted criticism, particularly from local government. We agreed with the need for improvement and led the call for changes to the system, lobbying for a more proportionate balance between local self regulation and national oversight.
The 2007 Local Government Act brought in a remodelled local standards framework. The new devolved regime has been up and running since May 2008. The vast majority of complaints are now dealt with by local standards committees. We only deal with the most serious.
Since July 2009 the Standards Board for England has been operating under the new name: Standards for England. We’ve made this switch to emphasise how our role has changed. We’ve changed the look and feel of our communications to do more to highlight the positive aspects of conduct; making the point that ethical behaviour is both a good thing in itself and good for local democracy.
Responsibilities
Our responsibilities include:
- giving standards committees and councillors support and guidance on understanding the Code of Conduct, and on how to deal with complaints about the conduct of members of their council or authority
- monitoring the performance of local authorities in the local assessment of complaints
- publishing information about how councils and other authorities are dealing with complaints about their members
- working with standards committees to help them improve if they do not deal with complaints about their members properly
- removing the power of the standards committee to receive complaints about their members, if we believe it necessary
- investigating the most serious cases where the local standards committee believes it is not best placed to deal with the matter and we agree with them
