Waveney District Council

“The more we can promote standards and what we do, the better,” says Chair of Waveney District Council’s standards committee Caroline Nixon. It was the authority’s positive approach to increasing confidence in democracy, among other things, which saw it identified in the Standards and Ethics Award shortlist.

Caroline describes Waveney’s approach to ethical standards as “leading by example”, and argues that standards and ethics need to reflect the fact that members want to do good for their community and county.

Waveney’s successful entry in the Standards and Ethics category meant everyone pulling together to achieve key aims.

“It was jolly hard work!” Caroline says, “We’re a small district, and we don’t have a lot of money to draw on, but we’ve been getting through to our parish and town councils by making sure they’re aware of the Code of Conduct. We’ve taken lots of Code of Conduct books with us on visits to parishes and around the community. We give them to members and also to the public, which helps to keep people informed.”

Communicating standards is something the authority has demonstrated a clear commitment to. During the yearly Full Council meeting, Caroline updates those attending with her annual report – all of the councillors know about the standards committee, Caroline says, it was just a case of raising their profile.

To spread the standards message far and wide across the authority’s patch, Caroline and the standards committee members visit the parish and town councils. It’s important to clearly explain the Code of Conduct in relation to areas like personal and prejudicial interests, Caroline says: “There had been suspicion around planning applications and this area of the Code, but thankfully this now seems to be disappearing.”

One of the authority’s innovative ideas for tackling ethical standards was to incorporate local young people in their plans for drawing the issue to the attention of a wider audience.

A standards committee with a broad age range - from 30-70 years - Waveney believe that standards should be understood and contributed to by a range of age groups.

To encourage younger people to engage in and develop an understanding of standards and ethics in the democratic environment, a poster competition was held, with the winning entry coming from Lowestoft College.  The ‘We Pledge’ posters based on the Ten General Principles of Public Life were publicised throughout the district and formed a central part of a wider ethical governance campaign. 

The authority also created the ‘Young Filmmaker Competition’, which appealed to local young people to produce a film which would promote standards. The winning entry was from a girl who had her friends act out a scenario regarding discrimination and was published on the authority’s website. In addition, the film will be used as a resource for newly-elected member inductions.

Caroline describes the competition as “very successful.”

“Most members of the public don’t know we exist and what we do,” she says, “It’s important to get our aims and purpose across to them.”