What is the role of the Monitoring Officer?
The Monitoring Officer is a senior officer of North Devon District Council (hereafter the District Council) who has statutory responsibility for maintaining the register of members’ interests and who is responsible for administering the system in respect of complaints of member misconduct. This is for elected and co-opted members of the District Council and those of town and parish councils in the area of the District Council (see further under “Context” below). The Monitoring Officer at the District Council is Simon Fuller in the post of Senior Solicitor and Monitoring Officer.
The Monitoring Officer is also responsible for:
a) the discharge of duties regarding reports set out in sections 5 and 5A of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 where it appears to them the District Council has done, or is about to do, anything which would contravene the law or which would constitute maladministration; and
b) reviewing and keeping the District Council’s Constitution up to date.
Please be aware that these duties (a) and (b) above are in respect of only the District Council and not in respect of town and parish councils.
Where you have a complaint about maladministration or lawfulness of the actions of a town or parish council you must raise this with the town or parish council itself via the clerk or its chairperson. Where you feel they have not satisfactorily dealt with the issue you should seek to raise the matter with them via their formal complaints process (where they do not publish one you should make enquiries of their Clerk and/or their Chairperson). The Monitoring Officer has no powers to deal with issues of maladministration or lawfulness on the part of town or parish councils nor in terms of the constitution/standing orders of a town or parish council.
Context
This guidance sets out how you may make a complaint that an elected or co-opted member of the District Council or of a town or parish council within its area has failed to comply with that local authority’s Code of Conduct, and sets out how we will deal with allegations of a failure to comply with that local authority’s Code of Conduct.
Under section 28(6) and (7) of the Localism Act 2011, local authorities must have in place ‘arrangements’ under which allegations that a member or co-opted member of the District Council or of a town or parish council within the North Devon District, or of a Committee or Sub-Committee of the relevant local authority, has failed to comply with that local authority’s Code of Conduct can be investigated and decisions made on such allegations.
Such arrangements must provide for the District Council to appoint at least one Independent Person, whose views must be sought by the District Council before it takes a decision on an allegation which it has decided shall be investigated, and whose views can be sought by the District Council at any other stage, or by a member or a member or co-opted member of a town or parish council against whom an allegation has been made. In this regard the District Council has appointed Rob Jeanes to the role of Independent Person.
The Code of Conduct
The District Council has adopted a Code of Conduct for members within its Constitution, Part 5.
Each town and parish council is also required to adopt a Code of Conduct. If you wish to inspect a town or parish council’s Code of Conduct, you should inspect any website operated by the town or parish council and/or request the parish clerk to allow you to inspect the town or parish council’s Code of Conduct.