Committee details

All councils are required to establish a Standards Committee as part of an ethical framework for public authorities following the Local Government Act 2000.  The Standards Committee deals with Councillors standards and behaviour. It advises on a local Code of Conduct, hears cases on potential breaches, grants dispensations in certain circumstances and hears complaints that have been referred by the Monitoring Officer.

Code of Conduct:
Every Council is required to adopt a Code of Conduct that sets out the rules governing the behaviour of its members. All elected or co-opted members of the Council are covered by the code. Islington’s Code of Conduct is available in Part 6 of the Council’s Constitution.

Monitoring Officer:

The Monitoring Officer is appointed under Section 5 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 and has a number of statutory functions in addition to those recently conferred under the Local Government Act 2000 and subsequent regulations governing local investigations into member conduct. Complaints can be made to the Council’s Monitoring Officer by filling out a Complaint Form.

Standards Committee procedures:

The Standards Committee has adopted procedures governing the process of initial assessment of complaints, investigation and hearing of complaints. Any person can make a complaint that a Councillor or co-opted member has breached the Code of Conduct. It is important to remember, however, that complaints about the policies or performance of the Council do not fall under the Code.

The Standards Committee will only meet as and when necessary and there are therefore no meetings programmed. Any meetings arranged will show in the list of meetings.

There are some complaints we cannot investigate, including:

• Complaints where a Member is not named;
• Complaints that are not in writing;
• Incidents or actions that are not covered by the Code of Conduct;
• Incidents that are about a fault in the way the Council has or has not done something. This is known as maladministration and may be a matter for the Local Government Ombudsman;
• Complaints about people employed by local authorities, the Council’s normal complaints procedure should be used for this type of complaint;
• Incidents that happened before a Member was elected;
• Incidents that happened before the Council adopted its local Code of Conduct on 26 June 2012;
• Complaints about the way in which the Council conducts and records its meetings.

Independent Persons:
Local authorities must appoint at least one ‘independent person’ to advise the council before it makes a decision on an allegation. The Council appointed Luke Rigg and Robert Milne as Independent Persons for Standards for a 4 year term of office on 24 September 2020.

If you have any questions please contact:

Philippa Green
Head of Democratic Services and Governance 

Islington Council
Town Hall
Upper Street
London
N1 2UD

Telephone: 020 7527 3184
Email: philippa.green@islington.gov.uk