Agenda and minutes

To elect a Chair of the Committee for the period until the next Council meeting.

RESOLVED – That Mr Stephen Clarke be elected Chair of the Committee for the period until the next Annual Council Meeting.

Mr Stephen Clarke in the Chair

To elect a Vice Chair of the Committee for the period until the next Council meeting.

RESOLVED – That Ms Julie Carter be elected Vice Chair of the Committee for the period until the next Annual Council Meeting.

To approve as a correct record and sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 18 September 2023.

The Minutes (copies of which had been circulated) of the meeting held on 18 September 2023 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Members and Officers to declare any interests which they may have in any of the items on the agenda for the meeting.

Councillors and Officers were invited to declare any interests which they may have had in any of the items on the agenda for the meeting.

The following interest was declared:-

Councillor                              Interest

To report any urgent action taken under the Constitution since the last meeting of the Committee.

No urgent decisions were reported.

Members of the public are invited to put questions to the Chair on any matters within the powers and duties of the Committee, subject to the exclusions set out in the Code of Practice. (Questions must be submitted no later than prior to the commencement of the meeting) You can also submit via the Council’s website at www.stockport.gov.uk/publicquestions.

No public questions were submitted.

To consider whether it is in the public to exclude the public during consideration of Agenda Item 8 – ‘Register of Member’s Interests – Treatment of Sensitive Interests’ as an appendix to the report contains information “not for publication by virtue of Category 1 – ‘Information relating to any individual’ as set out in the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended).

RESOLVED – That in order to prevent the disclosure of information which was not for publication relating to an individual as defined in Category 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended), the disclosure of which would not be in the public interest, would not be fair and would be in breach of Data Protection principles, the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of Agenda Item 8 - 'Register of Member's Interests - Treatment of Sensitive Interests' in the eventuality it was necessary to discuss the information contained within the ‘not for publication’ appendix.

To consider a report of the Assistant Director for Legal & Democratic Governance.

The report sets out the statutory scheme for recording member interests and invites the Committee to endorse the Monitoring Officer’s approach under which councillors home addresses may be treated as sensitive interests.

The Standards Committee is requested to note the report and endorse the Monitoring Officer’s approach to sensitive interests.

Officer contact: Vicki Bates on 0161 474 3219 or email: vicki.bates@stockport.gov.uk

The Assistant Director for Legal & Democratic Governance (Monitoring Officer) submitted a report (copies of which had been circulated) which set out the statutory scheme for recording member interests and invited the Committee to endorse the Monitoring Officer’s approach under which councillors home addresses may be treated as sensitive interests.

The following comments were made/issues raised:

·         In response to a Member question, Standards Committee was advised that the approach to these matters would be dealt with on a case by case basis.

·         It was confirmed that if a Member requested that their home address be removed from the Register of Interest it would also be removed from the website.

·         Members expressed their surprise that Members’ home addresses were in the public domain.

·         Members queried whether this would cause any issues in terms of eligibility of candidacy for councillors as one of the main qualifications is living within the Borough and would this be written in to the register of interests?   In response, the Committee was advised that members would still need to fill in the register of interests but this would then be redacted from view.  This would have to be balanced for each individual Member.  The Monitoring Officer advised that she would feedback to the Committee via email as to whether it would be possible to add some wording in to the register of interests which stated ‘address in borough’ or ‘address in ward’.

·         It was felt that it was in the public interest for people to know whether Members live within the Borough.

·         The Committee was advised that if a Member moved house then the register of interests would need to be updated.

RESOLVED -That the report be noted and the Monitoring Officer’s approach to sensitive interests be endorsed.