If the Monitoring Officer considers that a local hearing is necessary then they will report the Investigating Officer’s report to the Governance Committee, which will consider whether or not to conduct a local hearing before deciding whether the member has failed to comply with the Code of Conduct and, if so, whether to take any action in respect of the subject Member.

The District Council has agreed a procedure for local hearings.

Pre-hearing process

Essentially, the Monitoring Officer will conduct a ‘pre-hearing process’, requiring the subject Member to give his/her response to the Investigating Officer’s report, in order to identify what is likely to be agreed and what is likely to be in contention at the hearing, and the Chair of the Hearings Panel may issue directions as to the manner in which the hearing will be conducted. At the hearing, the Investigating Officer will present his/her report, call such witnesses as he/she considers necessary and make representations to substantiate his/her conclusion that the member has failed to comply with the Code of Conduct. For this purpose, the Investigating Officer may ask you as the complainant to attend and give evidence to the Hearings Panel. The subject Member will then have an opportunity to give his/her evidence, to call witnesses and to make representations to the Hearings Panel as to why he/she considers that he/she did not fail to comply with the Code of Conduct.

Hearings panel

The Hearings Panel may, with the benefit of any advice from the Independent Person, conclude that the subject Member did not fail to comply with the Code of Conduct, and so dismiss the complaint. If the Hearings Panel concludes that the member did fail to comply with the Code of Conduct, the Chair will inform the subject Member of this finding and the Hearings Panel will then consider what action, if any, the Hearings Panel should take as a result of the subject Member’s failure to comply with the Code of Conduct. In doing this, the Hearings Panel will give the subject Member an opportunity to make representations to the Panel and will consult the Independent Person, but will then decide what action, if any, to take in respect of the matter.