COMMENTARY ON SECTIONS Section 6: Functions of the Commissioner
11.Section 6 sets out the functions of the Commissioner.
12.One set of functions is to receive complaints of breaches by AMs of “relevant provisions”, to investigate those complaints, to report on them to the Assembly and to advise AMs and members of the public on the relevant procedures for making and investigating complaints. “Assembly” is defined in the Measure so as to include (other than in relation to the appointment, resignation and removal of a Commissioner or Acting Commissioner) any committee or sub-committee to which functions relating to the investigation of complaints against AMs have been delegated. So, under the Assembly’s current Standing Orders, the Commissioner would report to the Assembly’s Committee on Standards of Conduct.
13.“Relevant provisions” are rules about the conduct of AMs, defined in a way which is based on the functions delegated to the Committee on Standards of Conduct by the current Standing Order 16.1, but with sufficient flexibility to enable extensions to those rules to fall within the Commissioner’s jurisdiction. These rules only apply to the Counsel General when that person is also an elected AM (the Counsel General does not have to be an elected AM).
14.The Commissioner may also advise AMs and the public on procedures for making complaints and for investigating them.
15.The Commissioner is to have the further functions set out in section 7 (see below).