Human Right to Dance Badly in the Council Chamber

The main change seems to be that if a member is found to be in breach of the Code, the member can never be kicked off the council itself but that the member’s Group Leader can be asked to remove the member from any or all committees or sub-committees of the Council. In effect, the councillor would keep the basic allowance. Lesser findings of guilt merit censure ect. The other change is that failing to declare disclosable pecuniary interests was now a criminal offence.

There is one complaint outstanding and two closed, one of which was made at the very meeting which approved the new Code but because the Code did not apply till the next day, the Monitoring Officer decided to not refer it for further investigation. The complainant stated that a councillor was in breach of contract with the member’s party having been the sole councillor to vote against gay marriage.The complainant said that he found the member’s behaviour highly offensive. The Monitoring Officer also applied the Human Rights Act and the freedom of expression provisions. .

It is not known who made the complaint but by a process of deduction it was the conduct of Cllr Summers which was being complained about. Her local party have now kicked her out now anyway.

The other closed case was an old one (March 2011) about inappropriate dancing at the end of the Council Budget Meeting. The Monitoring Officer had passed it on for further investigation twice and now has closed it. The problem was that the complainant could not be certain that the person she observed dancing in the way described was the councillor named in the complaint. Though there was circumstantial evidence to suggest that inappropriate dancing had occurred however it was apparent that the councillor referred to in the allegation was not involved in the incident. The identity of the councillor who had been observed to be dancing inappropriately has not been revealed. In the end, both parties decided to call it a day.

It is not known what the dance was.

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