Agenda item

Registering Interests – Membership of Organisations

At the meeting of the Council on 4th of May 2022, the Leader of the Council requested advice on the requirement to register membership of the Freemasons and similar organisations. This report sets out the legal position and suggests options for members consideration.

Registering Interests – Membership of Organisations

At the meeting of the Council on 4th of May 2022, the Leader of the Council requested advice on the requirement to register membership of the Freemasons and similar organisations. The report set out the legal position and suggested options for members consideration.

The Leader introduced the report and referred to the additional advice regarding declarations which members had been provided with. The recommendations were in the report for members to decide upon. He proposed that Council suspend Council Procedure Rule 14.2 for the reasons set out in paragraph 11 of the report, which was seconded by Councillor Reid.

RESOLVED that Council Procedure Rule 14.2 be suspended for the reasons set out in paragraph 11 of the report.

Councillor Reid moved that the Council adopt the revised wording as detailed in Appendix 1, which was seconded by Councillor Hill.

Councillor Wearmouth proposed an amendment as follows:-

“to declare administrator, editor, and similar rights for all online and social media where it is not clear from the information freely available to the public. This includes all websites, Facebook profiles, pages, groups etc, twitter accounts, Instagram accounts and all other such media”. This was seconded by the Leader.

Councillor Hill fully supported the work which had been done on this and welcomed the proposal to include membership of all organisations. She also supported the amendment but was interested to have the Monitoring Officer’s advice on it, and also felt that a timeframe needed to be put on it.

Councillor Wearmouth replied that he felt it should be immediate on the vote being agreed.

Councillor Murphy questioned how this could possibly be policed. Councillor Wearmouth replied that hopefully members would be honest, and if they weren’t then the onus would be on them.

Councillor Reid sought clarity about whether this amendment to his motion needed to be accepted by him. The Monitoring Officer advised that with regard to Councillor Hill, the Council could agree any other registrable interests which weren’t in the statute as long as they were in line with openness and transparency. Councillors should adhere to this in line with the Nolan principles. Page 66 paragraph 13 onwards provided the guidance on this so it was lawful to put forward that amendment. Regarding Councillor Reid’s point, members were now debating Councillor Wearmouth’s amendment and Councillor Reid could accept that or not.

Councillor Oliver welcomed these developments and felt any transparency campaigners should support them. It was important to stamp out on bad social media practice. When it was hidden behind anonymous accounts it was particularly nasty, and he hoped all members would support it.

Councillor Ezhilchelvan was concerned about the proposed amendment as he could not see how it would be enforced. There would need to be a clear mechanism for that. Also, the untruths spread by anonymous blogs should be fought with truths. If a councillor’s wife became an admin of a blog, should that be declared as well? The amendment was going too far and he felt it was difficult to support.

Councillor Dickinson remarked that he detested anonymous blogs and the effect they had on mental health, but he could not support the amendment being effective from today as he had lots of evidence of unpleasant comments regarding a previous Leader when he had been in ill health. There were also difficult issues which had been identified around policing and reality. Members would have to be relied upon to be open and truthful and those who were running such blogs would never declare them because they didn’t care. The effects were disgraceful, but members had to be realistic about what they could achieve .

Councillor Wearmouth asked the Monitoring Officer to suggest a reasonable timeframe for compliance in view of the comments which had been made. A suggestion of 7-10 working days was suggested and Councillor Wearmouth accepted 10 working days.

Councillor Dale reported that she had suffered very badly from Facebook posts since 2014 and had been subjected to horrific treatment. She asked why this was only being highlighted now when it had been going on for years and nothing had been done to prevent what she had suffered when members knew what she was being subjected to.

Councillor Oliver commented that on any Facebook page or twitter account there was an option to include those involved at the top of the page so there were different ways of ensuring transparency.

Councillor Murphy proposed an amendment to set up a cross party group of members to take a deep dive into social media and identify where there were breaches of public principles and to hold the individuals to account.

Councillor Kennedy commented that if a councillor put something out on paper to the public then it had to include an imprint which identified that as being from that councillor. The key message was about individual members being responsible for their messaging whatever form that took. Many other Councils must have had the same debate and maybe something could be learned from them, or advice sought from the LGA,.

The Business Chair proposed that the meeting be extended to 6.15, which was seconded by Councillor Wearmouth. This was agreed by members.

Councillor Renner Thompson supported the motion and the suggested timeframe for compliance. He looked after Anne Marie Trevelyan’s Facebook page and many members would have seen the abuse that was posted on there, often from anonymous accounts. Such abuse impacted on MPs and their families and this was a debate which was also happening at a national level. He was keen that members look forward with this now.

Councillor Grimshaw expressed sympathy for those members who had suffered through social media and asked if there was any support available for those with ongoing issues. Councillor Flux replied that some actions had recently been agreed to support members in their mental health and a reminder could be sent out about this.

Councillor Hardy commented that a social media policy for the Council needed to be in place which members should adhere to.

Councillor Reid agreed something needed to be done but felt the amendment  should be referred to Standards Committee for further consideration. The amendment should not be tagged onto the original motion and needed to be properly evaluated to ensure it was the right solution to the problem. What would sanctions be for example? The two issues needed to be detached.

Councillor Wearmouth responded that Standards Committee would decide on any appropriate sanctions in respect of complaints about member conduct, on social media or otherwise. He repeated his amendment detailed above. In respect of Councillor Murphy’s point, social media had been looked at in the past via a working group, which could meet again to discuss matters further so he did not feel that it needed to subject to another amendment.

The Monitoring Officer confirmed that there was an existing social media policy, which was linked to the code of conduct, developed by national bodies which the Council had signed up to. One suggestion might be for a task and finish group to be established which could look at this policy to see which parts were not clear, and have that circulated as guidance.

In response to a question of clarity from Councillor Daley, Councillor Wearmouth confirmed that the member would be declaring in ten days, whatever they were involved in or a member of at that point.

On the motion as amended being put to the vote there voted FOR: a substantial majority; AGAINST: 1; ABSTENTIONS: 5. It was therefore RESOLVED that:-

(a)        Council agree to adopt the revised wording as attached at Appendix 1 to the report to be included in the Members Code of Conduct; and

(b)        members be required to declare administrator, editor, and similar rights for all online and social media where it is not clear from the information freely available to the public. This includes all websites, Facebook profiles, pages, groups etc, twitter accounts, Instagram accounts and all other such media.