Issue - meetings

To appraise Members of the report taken to the Procedures Committee on the 20^th September 2022, to report the decision taken by the Procedures Committee and to discuss further steps.

The Deputy Democratic Services and Scrutiny Manager appraised Members of the report taken to the Procedures Committee on the 20th of September 2022 regarding publicising the home addresses of Members on the Council’s website. 

The Procedures Committee agreed that the publication of home addresses would be a choice for individual Members, notwithstanding the legislation around register of interests. 

Members welcomed the discussion on the item and agreed with the resolution of the Procedures Committee that it should be down to individual choice. Members discussed that while home addresses can show what community a Member lives in, being sent a letter or having a constituent come to their house were not the way constituents tended to contact their Councillors in recent times.

The Deputy Democratic Services and Scrutiny Manager confirmed that any Member who wished to change their details on their councillor profile can contact her directly or the Members Services inbox. 

It was acknowledged that whilst members attending this meeting did not feel worried about their personal safety regarding intimidation and abuse, that other members may have different views. 

It was agreed that for the next Member Wellbeing Survey to include a question about personal safety to ensure any issues or trends are picked up. 

Action: Officers to include a question regarding safety in the next Member Wellbeing Survey. 

Report of the County Solicitor (Interim) regarding public disclosure of members addresses (CSO/22/15), attached.

RESOLVED that the suggestion of publication of home addresses on individual profile pages is a choice for individual Members, notwithstanding the current legislative position that the register of interests must include a home address unless the Member concerned and Monitoring Officer deem this to be a “sensitive interest, be endorsed.

The Committee considered the Report of the County Solicitor (Interim) which asked the Committee to review the issue of public disclosure of Members home addresses.

They noted that following the Standards Committee’s consideration of the Governments response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s Review of Local Government Ethical Standards, that Committee had asked that further work be carried out for options aiming to improve Councillors’ safety, including disclosure of addresses.

In that original Report, there had been 26 recommendations, the second of which was regarding the disclosure of Councillors home addresses, specifically asking that Government ensure that candidates standing for / accepting public offices were not required publicly to disclose their home address (i.e. that the Relevant Authorities (Disclosable Pecuniary Interests) Regulations 2012 be amended).

The Standards Committee had expressed concern over the public disclosure of Members addresses, particularly in light of increased incidents of abuse, harassment and intimidation experienced by Councillors as well as the legislative position for disclosure of Councillor addresses, as outlined in the Relevant Authorities (Disclosable Pecuniary Interests) Regulations 2012 and also the threshold for determining non-disclosure of councillor addresses.

The Report gave some Benchmarking data as well as National Campaigns such as the LGA debate not hate campaign https://www.local.gov.uk/about/campaigns/debate-not-hate and also the ninth Census of Local Authority Councillors in England.

The Report proposed that all Members were contacted and asked if they wished for their home address to be published on their profile page, or whether the County Hall address or another Council premises address was utilised as a correspondence / business address. The preference would then be reflected on the profile page on the website.

Members also discussed the LGA ‘debate not hate’ campaign being reflected on the democracy webpages, the legal position with addresses on election notices and the logistical position with potentially additional postage.

It was MOVED by Councillor Biederman, SECONDED by Councillor Leaver, and;

RESOLVED that the suggestion of publication of home addresses on individual profile pages is a choice for individual Members, notwithstanding the current legislative position that the register of interests must include a home address unless the Member concerned and Monitoring Officer deem this to be a “sensitive interest, be endorsed.