Mansfield District Council

Mansfield District Council is an example of an authority with a commitment to standards from the highest level.

Monitoring officer Anita Bradley meets regularly with the executive mayor to discuss relevant issues and decide whether they fit the standards committee’s remit. Discussions may also take place with the Cabinet, and the Managing Director has a role in contributing to the forward work plan before it is run past the committee.

As well as putting standards at the heart of its own governance, Mansfield also tries to monitor and ensure high standards when it works with external partners. The council has a Partnership Protocol Toolkit which it uses to evaluate all the council’s significant partnerships each year. This includes assessing risks against particular criteria –  including governance risks and levels of conduct.

This means that Mansfield District Council is also well-placed to talk to partnership organisations about ethical governance: the council’s monitoring officer has recently visited a local Tenants and Residents Forum, for example, and talked to the Forum’s members about standards to encourage them to take an ethical approach, using the Ten Principles of Public Life as a starting point.

The authority’s member-officer protocol is designed to run on ‘mutual respect’, and much is done to boost awareness of it. It is part of the council’s constitution and is available on its website; it’s also given to all new employees when they are appointed and to members on their election. To promote the protocol further, articles have also appeared in the council’s internal newsletter, ‘Insider’. Training sessions for members also help to clarify things further.

When it comes to actual standards complaints and their outcomes, the authority has tried to balance openness and transparency with a positive and forward-looking approach. The monitoring officer produces briefing notes based on the issues raised in the complaint. This enables her to draw learning points from the process which can be looked at as part of the standards committee’s agenda, and has also helped to make members more aware of how the Code is applied and when a complaint is or isn’t appropriate.