The Standards Committee of Kent Council met on Thursday, 31 July 2025, to discuss revisions to the handling of code of conduct complaints, and to appoint a hearing panel. The committee was also scheduled to receive an introduction to the standards regime, and to confirm the minutes of their meeting held on 20 March 2024.

Revisions to Arrangements for Dealing with Code of Conduct Complaints

The committee was scheduled to discuss proposed revisions to the arrangements for dealing with code of conduct complaints. According to the report pack, the decision to review the arrangements followed work on updating the Code of Member Conduct. The revisions were produced by the Kent Secretaries working group, and were tested against guidance produced by the Local Government Association (LGA) on handling member code of conduct complaints¹.

The report pack included the overarching document and three annexes:

• Arrangements for Dealing with Code of Conduct Complaints under The Localism Act 2011
• Annex 1 Procedure on Receipt of a Complaints
• Annex 2 Procedure for Investigating the Complaint
• Annex 3 Hearing Panel Procedure

The proposed changes to the arrangements were marked up as amendments to the current ones in the appendix. The report pack noted that local customisations, such as references to Borough, City and District Councils, had been removed, and terms had been changed to be consistent with Kent County Council practice.

The substantive changes proposed included:

• Clarification of roles: Throughout the document, the respective roles of the Monitoring Officer and Independent Person were clarified.
• Anonymous complaints: The updated LGA guidance states that authorities should not normally allow anonymous complaints. The proposed changes built on this principle and set out a framework for how a complainant's request for anonymity would be managed.
• Timetable changes: Reflecting on the practical demands of managing a complaints process, the time allowed for some of the stages has been amended. For example, the time given to acknowledge receipt of a complaint was proposed to be increased from 5 to 15 working days.
• Discontinuations and deferrals: A new section was added setting out in brief the circumstances in which action on a complaint may be discontinued, deferred or referred back to the Monitoring Officer.
• New breaches: A new section has been added to make it explicit what the procedure will be if evidence of new breaches of the Kent Code are uncovered during the course of an investigation. In sum, the investigation can only consider the original complaint.
• Subject member representatives: Annex 3 amends the section on the Subject member's right to be accompanied by a representative by clarifying that the Hearing Panel have the right to ask the representative to leave if they are disruptive.
• Aggravating and mitigating factors: Sections 10.4 and 10.5 are new to Annex 3 and set out examples of aggravating and mitigating factors which the Hearing Panel may take into account when considering whether to apply sanctions.
• Sanctions: Section 12 of Annex 3 refreshes the examples list of possible sanctions.
• Decision summary: Section 13 of Annex 3 sets out more clearly what any decision summary should include.
• No right of appeal: Section 14 of Annex 3 adds a reminder that there is no right of appeal against a decision.

The Standards Committee was asked to approve the revised arrangements for handling member complaints, and to delegate to the Monitoring Officer the authority to take the necessary actions to implement the new arrangements.

Appointment of Hearing Panel

The committee was asked to appoint a Hearing Panel. According to the report pack, the Standards Committee Hearing Panel is convened whenever a complaint against a Member has reached the stage where a formal investigation has been completed and the Monitoring Officer considers that informal resolution is not appropriate or unlikely to be achieved.

The Panel consists of three Members drawn from the Standards Committee. The report pack recommended that the Hearing Panel consists of:

1. The Chair of this Committee.
2. The Vice-Chair of this Committee.
3. One other Member.

Political proportionality rules apply and therefore two of the Panel Members must be from the largest Political Group on the Council and the third should be drawn from the second largest.