Assessment made clear - DVD

Our latest DVD, ‘Assessment made clear’, is designed to help standards committee members and local authority officers involved in the assessment of complaints about elected or co-opted members.

Dramatised case studies are used to demonstrate the criteria that guide each decision, including whether any investigation should be conducted locally or referred to Standards for England. We also show when it may be appropriate to take no action or other action.

The DVD was distributed to all monitoring officers and County Association secretaries at the beginning of October. Additional copies can be ordered from Standards for England at a cost of £12.50 each. To order extra copies, please email publications@standardsforengland.gov.uk.

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Trailer

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Text transcript of the trailer

Cllr Andrews (leader of the Opposition): I have just been informed by (obviously lying) an extremely distinguished local businessman, that an email I sent him did not arrive. You cannot imagine the embarrassment this has caused.

Sandra looks at Cllr Andrews in stunned silence.

Bill Miller (Head of IT): I'm sorry to hear that Councillor Andrews. If you can let me have the details I'll try to sort it out for you.

Cllr Andrews: Sort it out, how do you propose to sort it out? Unless you have a ruddy time machine. (Audibly under his breath) …bloody idiot.

Bill Miller: What did you say? 

Cllr Andrews: What I want to know is, why it happened and what you’re going to do to prevent it ever happening in the future.

John Gray (Monitoring Officer): The assessment committee may also decide there is no potential breach of the Code or, if there is, it is too trivial to warrant an investigation, and decide to take no action.

Cllr Akbar (Assessment sub-committee member): So there are three possible outcomes? Local investigation, referral to Standards for England and no action.

John Gray: No, there's a fourth - it's called 'Other Action'.

Mr Ridley (Chair of Assessment sub-committee): (With lightness) That's when we can be a bit more creative.

Related information

'The Code Uncovered' , has been produced to help monitoring officers, councillors and standards committees understand their obligations under the Code.

Click here to view a clip from the DVD.