Standards Committee

North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Authority believes in a strong ethical culture within the organisation. It aims to promote the highest levels of conduct by its members and officers and to increase public trust in the delivery of its vision and objectives by:

• maintaining openness and transparency in conducting its business;
• being accountable for all it says and does;
• ensuring everyone knows what is expected of them;
• offering appropriate training and development programmes; and
• promoting the work of its Standards Committee.

These principles are supported throughout the Authority.

Principles and Members’ Code of Conduct

There are statutory General Principles of Conduct which govern the conduct of Members and certain co-opted Members on Authority committees in discharging their duties.

Such Members must also adhere to a Code of Conduct for Members, which places general conduct obligations upon them, for example treating others with respect, and which also requires them to:

• disclose the existence and nature of certain personal interests to meetings of the Authority and its committees;
• disclose the existence and nature of prejudicial interests to meetings of the Authority and its committees and then, after speaking if allowed under the Code, to withdraw from the meeting (unless s/he has a dispensation from the Standards Committee). A prejudicial interest is a particular type of personal interest which might reasonably be regarded as so significant as to affect the Member’s judgment of the public interest;
• register certain financial and other interests in the Register of Members’ Interests which is open to public inspection during office hours (and an electronic version is also available on the Authority’s website - currently being updated).

The Authority has adopted a Protocol for Member/Officer Relations to guide Members and Officers of the Authority in their relations with one another.

Complaint of breach of Members' Code of Conduct

Any complaint that a Member may have breached the Members' Code of Conduct must be made, in writing, to the Standards Committee at:

The Standards Committee
c/o The Monitoring Officer
North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service
North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters
Thurston Road
Northallerton
North Yorkshire
DL6 2ND

The Standards Committee can only deal with complaints about the behaviour of a Member under the Members’ Code of Conduct and cannot deal with complaints about issues that are not covered by the Code.

For more information about making a complaint, please see the document "Making a Complaint about a Member”.

Such complaints will usually be handled locally by the Standards Committee and its Sub-Committees but may, in certain circumstances, be referred to Standards for England for investigation and determination by the First Tier Tribunal: “Local Government Standards in England” (formerly known as the Adjudication Panel for England).

An explanation of the roles of the various bodies involved in the standards regime is set out in the Roles within the Ethical Framework attachment.

Meetings, agendas and minutes

A meetings schedule, agendas and minutes of previous meetings of the Standards Committee can be seen in key documents.

Publications and documents

The Standards Committee produces, periodically, a Standards Bulletin which is circulated to Members of the Authority to keep them informed of the key developments and decided cases in the standards regime. The latest edition of the Bulletin is available for download in the committee papers section of this site.

It also publishes an Annual Report of the Standards Committee which updates Members on the work of the Standards Committee. The latest Annual Report is published in the committee papers section.

Below are some of the other documents of reference:

• General Principles of Conduct
• Members Code of Conduct
• Standards Committee Assessment Criteria
• Standards Committee Complaint Assessment Procedure
• Standards Commitee Complaint Investigation Procedure
• Standards Commitee Complaint Determination Procedure
• Making a Complaint About a Member

 Members

• BEAVERS, Phil*
• BOYCE, Barbara
• DAWSON, Mrs Kim* (Vice-Chairman)
• PEARSON, Chris
• STEWARD, Chris
• THOMPSON, Roger* (Chairman)
• WILLIAMS, Andrew

*Phil Beavers, Mrs Kim Dawson and Roger Thompson are (non-elected) Independent Members. They have each been appointed to serve until the date of the North Yorkshire County Council elections in 2013.

Elected Members' Substitute Members