Blog: 21/03/22 - Quentin Baker, LLG President

Governments Response to the CSPL’s ‘Ethical Review’ Rejects Effective Sanctions but Supports LLG’s Long Standing Campaign for Statutory Protections for Monitoring Officers.   

Having waited well over three years for the Government’s response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s (CSPL) Ethical Standards Review, last Friday it landed without notice or fanfare, to muted acclaim from the sector.   

Although the Government has rejected some of the key recommendations contained within the CSPL 2019 report, there are a number of areas where Govt. has agreed to further consideration, and this includes what is perhaps the most significant proposal which concerns the issue of sanctions for breaches and in particular the ability to suspend councillors. The government has committed to engage with sector representative bodies of councillors and officers of all tiers of local government to seek views on options to strengthen sanctions to address breaches of the code which fall below the bar of criminal activity and related sanctions but involve serious incidents of bullying, harassment or disruptive behaviour. This provides a further opportunity for the sector to lobby for the much needed ‘teeth’ for the code and myself and colleagues in LLG will be actively engaged in that process..   

One shining beacon, however, was the Governments support for the recommendation that the disciplinary protections for statutory officers should be enhanced, by extending disciplinary protections to all disciplinary actions (such as suspension or formal warnings), not just dismissal; committing to engage with sector representative bodies to ‘seek views on amending the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England)(Amendment) Regulations to provide disciplinary protections for statutory officers’.  

LLG has campaigned long and hard in support of statutory protection and we are pleased that our work to ensure that Monitoring Officers are rightfully protected in the discharge of their duties has delivered results and we look forward to providing views in due course on the amendment of the Regulations.  

LLG will shortly be producing a detailed response and there is more work to be done to ensure that the importance of good governance and ethical standards is at the heart of local government, but LLG stands ready to collaborate with sector colleagues and with central government to bring about effective change.. 

Quentin Baker

LLG President