All elected members and voting co-opted members must follow the code and if they are found to have breached it then they can face sanction by the standards committee. A failure to comply with the interests' regime may also amount to a criminal offence.

Complaints of breach of code

The responsibility for receiving and assessing complaints that a member may have breached the members' code of conduct lies with the monitoring officer, in consultation with the independent person for standards.

What this means is that if you want to complain about the conduct of a member of North Yorkshire County Council, you must submit your complaint, in writing using the  Council's complaint form [115kb] [word], to:

The monitoring officer
Legal and democratic services
North Yorkshire County Council
County Hall
Northallerton
North Yorkshire
DL7 8AD

The standards committee can only deal with complaints about the behaviour of a member which falls within the scope of the members' code of conduct. If you make a complaint under the standards framework, it must be about why you think a member has not followed the code.

The Council's standards committee has five elected council members. They are:

• County Councillor David Jeffels
• County Councillor Brian Marshall
• County Councillor Caroline Patmore
• County Councillor Peter Sowray
• County Councillor Geoffrey Webber

Also invited to meetings of the committee are:

• Mrs Hilary Gilbertson MBE, independent person for standards
• Ms Louise Holroyd, independent person for standards

The independent persons for standards are consulted on all key standards issues.

The standards committee has the following responsibilities:

• all functions of the Council under the Localism Act 2011 relating to ethical standards including:
• exercising all functions in respect of the publication of independent person for standards' vacancies (sub-delegated to the monitoring officer, in consultation with the chair of the committee);
• assisting in the recruitment of independent persons for standards to the standards committee (but not approving individual appointments);
• assisting where requested in the designation and handling of persistent and/or vexatious complaints and complainants.

The monitoring officer will assess a complaint in consultation with the independent person for standards, in accordance with agreed local assessment criteria and will decide whether or not a complaint merits formal investigation or other action.  The assessment criteria can be accessed here [14kb] [pdf].

The procedure which the standards committee hearing panel will follow in discharging its functions in relation to the determination of complaints can be accessed in the  North Yorkshire County Council standards arrangements document [20kb] [pdf].

Monitoring officer

The standards committee is supported in its work to uphold high ethical standards by the Council's monitoring officer, who has a key role in relation to the ethical agenda. View further information about the monitoring officer here.

Meetings

The standards committee agenda, reports and minutes are available from the minutes, agendas and reports section. If you have any queries regarding a meeting, please contact:

Democratic services,
North Yorkshire County Council,
County Hall,
Racecourse Lane,
Northallerton,
North Yorkshire,
DL7 8AD

Telephone: 0845 034 9494.