Agenda and minutes

There were no substitutions at the meeting.

There were no declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests and personal or personal and prejudicial interests.

No whip was declared.

There were no public requests received.

The Chairman welcomed Councillor Poole, Simon Green and Adam Lovell to the meeting, the council’s Standards Committee Chairman, Deputy Chief Executive and Head of Corporate Marketing respectively, who had been invited to discuss the council’s draft Media Relations and Publicity Management policy.

Councillor Poole informed the meeting that following an investigation, the Standards Committee (Hearings Panel) met on 6 May 2022 to consider a complaint submitted against an elected member.  Following consideration of the investigating officers report into the complaint, the Standards Committee resolved “……(c) that the Panel recommends that the relevant Publicity and Media Relations Policy be updated as soon as practicable and the updated draft policy be referred to a future meeting of the Governance Scrutiny Panel for consultation, prior to consideration by the Executive”.

The Deputy Chief Executive and Head of Corporate Marketing informed the Panel that the council’s Publicity and Media Relations Protocol, developed in April 2019, contained good practice advice and guidance explicitly to support members and officers to operate safely when seeking to generate publicity.  However, following the recommendation from the Standards Committee, benchmarking and comparisons had been made with other local authorities and the Local Government Association to strengthen the policy and develop a clear, robust and transparent process by which complaints could be reported, considered and where necessary elevated further.

The amended Media Relations and Publicity Management policy was attached to the agenda as an appendix.

Members discussed the amended policy with Councillor Poole, Mr Green and Mr Lovell, who responded to questions.

Resolved – (a) That the Media Relations and Publicity Management Policy be updated to include the amendments agreed by members at the meeting; (b) that once amended, the policy be circulated to all scrutiny panel members for their information, and (c) that the amended policy be approved and considered by the council’s Executive as soon as was practicable.

There was no added item for consideration at the meeting.

There was no urgent business for consideration at the meeting.