Minutes:
The Standards Committee at its last meeting had deferred consideration of the above Panel’s proposals to allow Members’ roles, responsibilities and performance indicators to be amended to take into account past changes in the Council’s democratic structure and, where applicable, make them less prescriptive to allow changes in practice over time to be accommodated. The revised schedule also incorporated changes proposed by the Standards Committee at its last meeting and the Members’ Performance Monitoring Panel’s recommendation relating to Member’s contact arrangements for constituents.
The revised document had been sent to all Group Leaders, Deputy Group Leaders and non-Group Members for comment but by the deadline set for responses none had been received.
The Committee’s attention was drawn to the recommendation that the Improvement Development Agency’s (I&DeA) Political Skills Framework should be incorporated into the Members’ roles and responsibilities document as the framework provided positive and negative indicators against which Members would be able to assess their own performance. The medium term aim was to use the I&DeA document as a base for drawing up a Member competency profile tailored specifically for Slough Members. It was envisaged that Members would use the competency profile in assessing/monitoring their own performance and drawing up their personal development plans. The profile would also help inform the content of the Member Development Programme and Members’ choices as to which development sessions, over and above the compulsory sessions, they should attend. In the longer term, the profile and associated development work around it might provide a more qualitative indicator of Members’ performance.
The Members’ Performance Monitoring Panel’s proposals had been considered by the Member Panel on the Constitution at its meeting on 23rd March, 2006 and the comments of that Panel were reported to the Standards Committee for consideration. The Standards Committee discussed the Constitution Panel’s comments at length during which the following points were made:-
· That the Committee accepted that the only sanction open to the Council was to name and shame Members who failed to meet the standards expected of them but that this could be a powerful and effective tool.
· That the local electorate had the right to know which Members were not fulfilling their duties and responsibilities.
· That a Member’s performance should not be judged solely on the number of meetings s/he attended and that the amount of casework a Member undertook and his/her effectiveness in this area should also be taken into account.
· That if Members’ performance was to be judged on their attendance at meetings some means of accurately verifying their attendance should be considered. It was suggested that to facilitate this while also improving the security of the Town Hall and obviating the need to have door access codes with the associated administrative work the Council should consider the introduction of an electronic control access system.
· That the random checks proposed in respect of Members attendance at meetings of Outside Bodies would be in respect of only a very few Members i.e. no more than 4 and in the Committee’s view this should not be too onerous.
Recommended -
(a) That the revised Members’ roles, responsibilities and performance indicators incorporating the Improvement Development Agency’s political skills framework now submitted be approved and adopted.
(b) That annually an information report should be submitted initially to all Group Leaders, non Group Members and Members of the Standards Committee and then to full Council showing in respect of each Member for the preceding municipal year the following:-
· Number of meetings called to attend and number of meetings actually attended,
· In respect of meetings not attended whether or not apologies were tendered and reasons for non-attendance given.
· Number of training sessions attended.
· Record of attendance at compulsory training sessions.
· Attendance record at meetings of outside bodies to which they are appointed as the Council’s representative.
(c) That, at the end of each municipal year, each Member appointed as a Council representative on an outside body be required to submit a short feedback report including details of the number of meetings they were called to attend and actually attended.
(d) That, in respect of (c) above, random checks on Members’ attendance at outside bodies meetings be carried out annually with the Members being selected at random by the Chair of the Standards Committee.
(e) That no action be taken in respect of the recommendation that a Member failing to attend three successive meetings should be reported to the Standards Committee and his/her Group Leader (if appropriate).