Questions of standards.

I have spent the last two days on training courses related to the work that I do on the Audit Committee at the County Council.

This is not perhaps perceived as the most exciting part of my role, and, indeed, the courses did have their moments of tedium.

However, someone has to try to make sure that the trains run on time and that the boxes get ticked and it is not as dull as it sounds.  There is often the opportunity to suggest improvements, and it is a good way to understand some of the nuts and bolts of the finances and system of governance.

On Tuesday afternoon the course was on the subject of the new ‘lighter touch’ Standards regime that has been introduced by this Government. Standards issues used to be handled by a separate Standards Committee, but now come under the remit of Audit.  It was felt that the previous system encouraged too many frivolous complaints about councillors and took up too much time.  The problem now however is that, if a councillor chooses not to co-operate with the inquiry, there is little that can be done unless he or she has actually committed a criminal offence.  Perhaps this is right, but there are times when an incident falls short of criminality, but still brings the council into disrepute.