The dust settles

Margot Giblin

The dust is settling on the new rules for replacing absent committee Chairmen.
Time will now be found to address one of the issues that led to this being a problem for aldermen on the Development and Environmental Services (DESC) committee.

One problem arose from the question of conflict of interest.

On 25 July 2006 the Lord Mayor received a complaint in relation to the alleged failure of an Alderman to comply with principles of the Aldermanic Code of Conduct, both at a DESC and a full Council meeting.

The Standards Panel’s determination that there had been no conflict of interest was tabled at the 29 January 07 Council meeting. This caused continuing concern and dissatisfaction for some aldermen.

At the Strategic Governance Committee Meeting on Tuesday night (6.3.07) it was suggested that a workshop being planned to review the Code of Conduct should include expert advice on conflict of interest. This should include discussion of much broader ramifications of the concept than appear to have been considered by the Panel.

The suggestion was Peter Sexton’s and his reason was that generally, and in relation to the above case, there is a lack of emphasis on either perceived or potential conflicts of interest.

His concern was, he said, that argument in the most recent case had centred on actual conflict, which no-one had suggested had occurred.

It is Sexton’s view that the importance of both perceived and potential conflicts of interest cannot be underestimated.

The latter, he felt, were completely missed by the panel in its recent findings. He stressed that this was no reflection on the officers given that there was general misunderstanding and misapplication of the concept.

The motion to invite an independent expert to the workshop was passed, as was the motion to have the workshop take place as soon as possible.

(Strategic Governance Committee Jeff Briscoe (Chairman), Rob Valentine, Eva Ruzicka, Eric Hayes and Peter Sexton. Ron Christie was present and co-opted until Sexton arrived early in the meeting)