Commentary on Sections Conduct of members of authorities in England: assessment of allegations Section 185: Assessment of allegations
446.This section inserts section 57A of the Local Government Act 2000 which provides for individual local standards committees of authorities to undertake the role currently exercised by the Standards Board for England of conducting the initial assessment of allegations of misconduct which relate to authorities’ members or co-opted members.
447.It sets out the courses of action open to a standards committee where such an allegation is received. The options are: to refer the allegation to the authority’s monitoring officer for consideration; to refer the allegation to the Standards Board; or to take no action in respect of the complaint.
448.It also provides that a standards committee has discretion, where the subject of the allegation is no longer a member or co-opted member of the authority in question and has moved to another relevant authority, to refer the allegation to the monitoring officer of the member’s current local authority.
449.The section requires that, if a standards committee decides to take no action over an allegation, it should write to the person who made the allegation informing them of the decision and the reasons for this.
450.The section also makes provision for the Standards Board to issue guidance and give directions to a standards committee with respect to the exercise of these procedures.
451.The section also inserts section 57B of the Local Government Act 2000, to provide, where a standards committee of an authority has made a decision that no action should be taken regarding an allegation, for the person who made the allegation to be able to ask the standards committee to review its decision. The request for review must be made in writing within 30 days of the date of the notice of the original decision. Following receipt of such a request, the standards committee must undertake a new assessment of the allegation and reach a decision within three months of the date it received the request for a review of its original decision.
452.The section also inserts section 57C into the Local Government Act 2000 which provides that where a person makes an allegation of misconduct to a standards committee it must take reasonable steps to give a written summary of the allegation to the person who is the subject of the allegation. Where the standards committee makes a decision that no action should be taken, it must also take reasonable steps to give notice of this and the reasons for the decision to the subject of the allegation. In addition, where the standards committee receives a request to review a decision to take no action, it must take reasonable steps to give notice of this to the subject of the allegation. A power is also included for the Secretary of State to make regulations which may prescribe circumstances in which the duty to give a summary of the allegation to the subject of it should not arise at the time the standard committee receives the allegation but at another time.
453.The section also inserts section 57D of the Local Government Act 2000, to enable the Standards Board to direct that a standards committee’s power to undertake initial assessments of misconduct allegations should be suspended, and to direct that any allegations the standards committee receives must be referred either to the Standards Board or to a specified standards committee of another authority. The section provides a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations concerning the circumstances in which the Standards Board can exercise this power. Subsection (7) of new section 57D provides the Standards Board with a power to issue guidance in connection with section 57D or in connection with any direction under that section.
454.The section also inserts a new section 58 of the Local Government Act 2000 setting out the courses of action open to the Standards Board when an allegation is referred to it for consideration. The Standards Board must either refer the allegation for investigation to one of the Board’s ethical standards officers, or decide that no action should be taken, or refer the matter back to the relevant local standards committee. Where it decides to take no action, it should give notice of the decision and the reasons for it to the person who made the allegation and to a person who was the subject of the allegation.