Ethical standards clinic

The Standards Committee announce orally their decision at the end of the hearing. The subject member asks whether she will receive written confirmation of the decision. What should the Committee provide in writing to the subject member?

Most authority’s Standards Committee procedures provide that at the end of the hearing the Committee will announce its decision and give a short written decision stating whether the Committee found a breach of the code and any action that may be taken. There is no obligation to do so although it is useful for the sake of clarity. The Committee should ensure that the subject member and the investigator are aware that they will receive a fully reasoned written decision within a specified timescale.

As with all administrative decisions made by local authority Committees, the decision should be made by the Committee on its own and without influence from officers. Whilst the Monitoring Officer or legal adviser to the Committee may advise the Committee as to its role, legal interpretation of the code and application of the code, they should not write the reasoning for the Committee.

The fully reasoned decision needs to be sufficiently detailed to make it clear the Committee’s findings of fact, and reasons for determining any disputes, determinations as to the breaches and factors taken into account in finding the breach as well as the reasons for imposing (or not) the sanction. The decision must be written in such a way to enable the subject member to be able to understand how the Committee reached its decision. Providing no reasoning in the decision could lead to an appeal by the subject member and criticism directed at the Committee by the Adjudication Panel for England (see APE0303).

If the Committee merely adopt the investigator’s reasoning, this could indicate that the Committee has not given careful and independent thought to the matters before it and has just rubber stamped the investigator’s findings which may lead to an appeal or a judicial review challenge (see Adami v Ethical Standards Officer (2005) EWCA Civ 1754).