Minister to respond “shortly” to report issued by standards watchdog in 2019 on local government ethical standards

The Minister for Levelling Up Communities, Kemi Badenoch, has said she is actively considering the recommendations set out in the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) on local government ethical standards published three years ago and will respond “shortly”.

The Minister’s comments came in response to a question from Mark Garnier MP.

Mr Garnier had asked the Minister to “confirm if and when the Government will legislate to implement their recommendations and that any legislation will equip councils with more robust sanctions for serious or repeated breaches of the code of conduct, an example of which could be a ban for six months”.

In response Ms Badenoch said: “I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue and for his recent letter on the matter, which I shall respond to shortly. I am actively considering the recommendations set out in the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and will respond shortly. It is of the utmost importance that local authorities have the right tools to make the system work.”

In its Local Government Ethical Standards report, issued in 2019, the CSPL’s recommendations included that local authorities should be given the power to suspend councillors without allowances for up to six months for breaches of the code of conduct.

It also envisaged a role for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in giving sanctioned councillors a route to appeal conduct decisions.

Last month the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said that having powers to assess the handling of code of conduct complaints could help end “toxic long-running” standards disputes.

However, Michael King suggested that complainants as well as sanctioned councillors should be given the right to ask the Ombudsman to review a council’s handling of alleged breaches. He insisted that this would not mean a recreation of the Standards Board for England.

In July 2021 the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life said the watchdog remained concerned that the Government had not formally responded to the report.