Suffolk Coastal District Council

The standards committee at Suffolk Coastal District Council plays an important role not just in overseeing issues involving the members’ Code of Conduct but also in wider standards matters. For instance, the standards committee periodically reviews a number of parts of the council’s constitution, including the Officer Code of Conduct, the whistleblowing policy and the Codes of Good Guidance in Planning and Rights of Way.

Monitoring officer Hilary Slater finds their input very useful: as many of the standards committee members are not councillors and have a wide range of experience between them, their external viewpoints can be invaluable when it comes to practical, common sense suggestions. It also helps the independent standards committee members to get a feel for the wider council and how it works.

The authority works hard to raise the profile of standards and ethics internally, among both officers and members. Suffolk Coastal’s intranet has its own standards page, and the monitoring officer makes sure officers and members are up to speed with their ethical obligations by periodically issuing reminders. These are sometimes prompted by questions members have asked, or are based on feedback from officers.

When it comes to the general public, Suffolk Coastal is keen to ensure that they are well-informed about member conduct. As well as an article in ‘Coastline’, the council’s newsletter, to coincide with the launch of the local assessment system, Suffolk Coastal District Council’s monitoring officer also worked with her counterparts across the county to produce a leaflet on how to complain. This was widely circulated to the county’s libraries and council reception areas.

Working with neighbouring authorities has proved useful in other ways, too. Suffolk’s monitoring officers meet regularly to share information and good practice and discuss recent developments in case law or new Standards for England guidance. This contributes to regular updates to the standards committee at their meetings, and in turn, the standards committee chair presents the minutes to the full council. This means that the standards committee and its chair have a profile among members, and that councillors also get to hear about the standards committee’s work and recent case decisions from elsewhere.