Agenda and minutes

A hearing of the Standards Committee will be held on Wednesday 21 December 2005, commencing at 1.00pm in Room 1, Training Suite, The Guildhall, St Giles Square, Northampton, NN1 1DE, to consider whether Councillor Stephen Stewart, failed to comply with Northampton Borough Council’s Members Code of Conduct.

LOCAL DETERMINATION OF A COMPLAINT TO THE STANDARDS BOARD OF ENGLAND

 COUNCILLOR STEPHEN STEWART

Purpose of the Hearing

The Chair advised that Mr Fernandes, NBC Monitoring Officer, had received a report from The Standards Board for England in relation to an investigation under Section 59 of the Local Government Act 2000 by Stephen Kingston, Ethical Standards Officer, into an allegation concerning Councillor Stephen Stewart, a member of Northampton Borough Council. The report related to an alleged breach of paragraph 2.3 of the Northampton Borough Council Code of Conduct for Councillors. The role of the Committee was to determine whether the Code of Conduct had been breached and if so what penalty should be imposed if any.

The Chair referred to the procedure that would be followed, a copy of which had been sent to Councillor Stewart, and advised that this could be varied as appropriate as the meeting progressed.

Preliminary Proceedings

Councillor Stewart advised that in the form he had submitted previously he had indicated that he did not want to have any part of the hearing held in private, however he had now changed his mind and wanted the hearing to take place in private. The Chair invited Councillor Stewart to make a statement as to his reasons for wanting the hearing to be heard in private and consideration would then be given as to whether those reasons met the criteria for excluding the public and press. The Monitoring Officer stated that such hearings should be held in public unless the reasons given met the criteria in relation to the exempt information that was to be considered.

Councillor Stewart felt that it was sufficient for the result of the hearing to be made public. Also, in his view, the local press had treated him harshly when he had been convicted and subsequently, and he did not want to repeat the experience. The Monitoring Officer advised the Committee that the reasons given did not satisfy the legal criteria for excluding the press and public and therefore the hearing should be held in public. He then gave examples of the types of exempt information that met the criteria for the case to be heard in private.

Councillor Stewart stated that the complaint had been made by an officer of Wellingborough Borough Council after seeing an article in the Chronicle and Echo and asked whether an arrangement was in place whereby an officer of Northampton Borough Council would take the same action in a similar situation. The Monitoring Officer advised that there was no such arrangement in place.

Consideration of the facts in relation to the incident that led to the conviction

The Monitoring Officer advised that he had written to Councillor Stewart before the hearing as to whether he disputed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.