Committee details

The Standards Committee is a statutory body responsible for promoting and maintaining high standards of conduct in the authority. The main responsibilities of the Committee are to help district, town and parish Councillors follow the code of conduct, give advice on the code and assess and review complaints about elected Members.

The Committee is attended by 8 Councillors, 3 independent members and 2 parish council representatives.

For more information on the Councillor’s code of conduct, please click here.

The current Standards regime will cease to exist on 30 June 2012. As part of the new arrangements, which come into effect on 1 July 2012, local authorities are required to appoint Independent Persons.

Independent Persons

Appointment of Independent Persons to assist the Council in Handling Complaints against Councillors.

Local authorities have a new duty to promote and maintain high standards of conduct amongst their councillors and co-opted members. We will need 2 persons who are independent of the Council who can bring a measure of experience and common sense to handling complex and sometimes contentious issues. The Council has adopted a new Code of Conduct and is in the process of introducing new arrangements for handling complaints. The Independent Person will play an important role in this and you will be working closely with the Council’s Monitoring Officer who will need to consult you formally with regard to how matters should be handled. This process will extent to complaints against Town and Parish Councillors in the Cherwell area as well as Cherwell District Councillors.

We will be looking to recruit our Independent Persons during the course of July. If you would like to express an interest in this forthcoming process then please contact Natasha Clark, Team Leader – Democratic and Elections at  natasha.clark@cherwellandsouthnorthants.gov.uk or telephone to discuss on Tel 01295 221589 and we will make sure that you are sent the necessary details at the appropriate time.