Open audit sets the standard

As Chairman of Worthing Council's Standards Committee, and one of four co-opted members, independent of elected councillors and not employed by the council, I was surprised and pleased to find the focus on our deliberations, to enhance the way the council works, had made last week's front page ("£9,000 for councillors to be nice to each other").
By The Newsroom
Published 15th Dec 2009, 13:14 BST
Updated 8th Jun 2018, 00:58 BST

Read the original story about the Worthing Council's consultancy plans here.

As co-opted members, we want to understand how ethically the council is behaving now, what can be done to improve, and what steps can be taken to avoid future problems.

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It isn`t a question of spending public funds for councillors and officers to be "extra nice" to each other and the public, expected standards of behaviour are already set in the members' code of conduct and the officer/member protocol.

Where breaches of the code of conduct are alleged, the standards committee aims to deal with such complaints effectively.

The essence of the independent audit is to assure an open and transparent picture of the current ethical standards of councillors, and officers, whilst conducting council business, including spending tax payers` money.

To shy away from such discovery would raise many questions, particularly in the light of the recent focus on standards at national level.

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Arguments made against the proposal is that the council already conducts many audits of its own, but where lies the objectivity and independence in those?

Putting things into perspective, spending just 0.04 per cent of the council`s 19,000,000 (approx) budget could well be judged, by those in position of the full facts, as money well spent in order to inspire confidence, in the future, of Worthing Council's actions.

What your report failed to note was that it was only the independent members who voted in favour of the audit, with all elected councillors present at the committee meeting voting against.

As the officer`s report stated: "A key benefit of good ethical governance is that a council which gets its roles and relationships right in an ethical sense is more likely to be effective in helping to improve the quality of life for its local residents."

Bring it on!

Jane Stirzaker-Evans

Chairman

Worthing Borough Council

standards committee

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