Minutes:
The Officers submitted a request from the Scrutiny and Overview Committee that the Standards Committee should consider undertaking an investigation into the leaking to the local press of the confidential draft Audit Commission report setting out the results of their review of the overview and scrutiny arrangements within the Council.
The Director of Legal, Democratic and Development Services indicated that breaches of confidentiality were treated very seriously by the Standards Board for England and proven breaches of the Code in this respect had resulted in Members being suspended or disqualified.
The Committee considered that the likelihood of uncovering the identity of the person responsible for the leak to be poor but in view of the seriousness of the offence was of the view that action needed to be taken to try to identify the person concerned.
Resolved - That the Monitoring Officer be requested to arrange a preliminary investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of the confidential draft Audit Commission report on the Council’s overview and scrutiny arrangements and report back the findings to the Committee.