Officers’ Code of Conduct
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Introduction
The public is entitled to expect the highest
standards of conduct from all employees who work for local
government. This Code outlines existing laws, regulations and
conditions of service and provides further guidance to assist
employees in their day-to-day work. The Code is
produced in the light of the challenges that employees face in the
new and more commercially oriented environment. This includes
Best Value, market testing, changes in the management of housing
services, care in the community, management buyouts, etc.
This Code lays down minimum standards for
employees which will help maintain and improve standards and
protect employees from misunderstanding or criticism. Failure
to meet such standards can result in adverse public comment to the
detriment of the Council and the service and in certain
circumstances can have serious consequences for the employee and
put his/her job at risk.
Although this code cannot be exhaustive it
contains sufficient guidance to make employees aware of what is
required. If circumstances arise which leave an employee in
doubt as to what should be done, he or she should immediately
arrange to obtain advice from his or her manager or an appropriate
Senior Officer. In the case of Directors, reference to
Director shall mean the Chief Executive.
Contents
1. Standards
1.1 Local government employees are expected to give the
highest possible standard of service to the public, and where it is
part of their duties, to provide appropriate advice to councillors
and fellow employees with impartiality.
Employees will be expected, without fear of
recrimination, to bring to the attention of the appropriate level
of management any deficiency in the provision of service. Employees
must report to the appropriate manager any impropriety or breach of
procedure.
2. Disclosure of Information
2.1 It is generally accepted that open government is best.
The law requires that certain types of information must be
available to members, auditors, government departments, service
users and the public. The authority itself may voluntarily decide
to disclose other types of information when the law permits such
disclosure. Employees must be aware of the information their
authority must make available, the information that it is prepared
to make openly available voluntarily, and that which it is not
prepared to disclose. (See 2.3 below.)
2.2 Employees should not use any
information obtained in the course of their employment for personal
gain or benefit, nor should they pass it on to others who might use
it in such a way otherwise than might reasonably be expected in the
normal course of their duties. Any particular information
received by an employee from a councillor which is personal to that
councillor and does not belong to the authority should not be
divulged by the employee without the prior approval of that
councillor, except where such disclosure is required or sanctioned
by the law.
2.3 All confidential or exempt
information and material (oral as well as written) must be treated
accordingly unless and until it becomes public in the course of the
Council’s business.
2.4 In certain circumstances, employees
may have a legal or professional duty to disclose information to a
third party, (for example, in the course of legal proceedings).
If employees are asked by a third party to
give evidence in legal proceedings about something that has
happened in the course of their employment with the Council, they
should immediately seek the advice of the Head of Legal and
Democratic Services or, in the case of an Industrial Tribunal, the
Head of Personnel and Development.
2.5 Information concerning an employee's
private affairs shall be treated sensitively and confidentially and
shall not be supplied to any person outside the service of the
employing authority unless the consent of such employee is first
obtained.
2.6 All the above must be read in
conjunction with the Council’s Whistleblowing Charter.
3. Political Neutrality
3.1 Employees serve the authority as a whole. It
follows, therefore, that employees serve all councillors and not
just those of the controlling group or groups, and must ensure that
the individual rights of all councillors are respected.
3.2 Employees shall not be required to advise
any political group of the employing authority either as to the
work of the group or as to the work of the authority neither shall
they be required to attend any meeting of any political group.
3.3 Employees, whether or not
"politically restricted", (see paragraph 3.5 below) must follow
every lawful expressed policy of the authority and must not allow
their own personal or political opinions to interfere with their
work.
3.4 Any political assistants appointed on
fixed term contracts in accordance with the Local Government and
Housing Act 1989, shall be exempt from the standards set in
paragraphs 3.1 to 3.3.
3.5 Politically Restricted
Posts
The Local Government and Housing Act 1989, Pt
1, contains provisions to stop 'twin-tracking', (where a senior
local authority employee is also an elected member of another local
authority), and to restrict the political activity of senior
employees. Local authority employees holding politically
restricted posts are disqualified from membership of any local
authority, other than a parish or community council (s1(1)) from
being an MP, or MEP, and are subject to prescribed restrictions on
their political activity (s1(5), (6)).
The Local Government Officers (Political
Restriction) Regulations 1990 and the Local Government (Politically
Restricted Posts) (No2) Regulations 1990 cover the posts which are
politically restricted. These are:
(a) specified posts, such as the Head of
Paid Service, the Monitoring Officer, Directors, and Service
Managers, all of whom are restricted without exemption or
appeal;
(b) all posts which reach or exceed a
prescribed remuneration ceiling. These are automatically included
on a list which employing authorities are under a duty to prepare
unless exemption for individuals is granted;
(c) all posts which meet the
duties-related criteria for determining a 'sensitive' post
irrespective of remuneration level unless the post holder appeals
successfully against determination. This applies to those
posts where the holder gives regular advice to the employing
authority, to any committee or sub-committee or another joint
committee on which the authority is represented (but excluding
purely factual information) or speaks on behalf of the authority on
a regular basis to journalists and broadcasters.
The political restrictions are deemed to be
incorporated in the contract of employment of every local authority
employee who holds a politically restricted post.
4. Relationships
4.1 Councillors
Employees are responsible to the authority
through its senior managers. For some, their role is to give
advice to councillors and senior managers and all are there to
carry out the authority's work. Mutual respect between employees
and councillors is essential to good local government. Close
personal familiarity between employees and individual councillors
can damage the relationship and prove embarrassing to other
employees and councillors and should therefore be avoided.
The above paragraph is a mirror image of the
Code for Councillors which is set out below.
The Local Government and Housing Act 1989,
s31, gives statutory status to the National Code of Local
Government Conduct (for the guidance of councillors of local
authorities). The Code includes within paragraphs 23 and 24
the following statements as to the role of councillors and
Officers:
23. "Both Councillors and Officers are servants of
the public, and they are indispensable to one another.
But
their
responsibilities are distinct. Councillors are responsible to
the electorate and serve only so long as
their
term of office lasts. Officers are responsible to the
Council. Their job is to give advice to
councillors
and
their council, and to carry out the council's work under the
direction and control of the council, their
committees
and sub-committees.
24. Mutual respect between Councillors and
Officers is essential to good local government. Close
personal
familiarity
between individual Councillors and Officers can damage the
relationship and prove
embarrassing to other Councillors and Officers”.
4.2 The Local Community and
Service Users
Employees should always remember their
responsibilities to the community they serve and ensure courteous,
efficient and impartial service delivery to all groups and
individuals within that community as defined by the policies of the
authority.
4.3 Contractors
All relationships of a business or private
nature with external contractors, or potential contractors, should
be disclosed in writing to the Head of Personnel and
Development. Orders and contracts must be awarded on merit,
by fair competition against other tenders, and no special favour
should be shown to businesses run by, for example, friends,
partners or relatives in the tendering process. No part of
the local community should be discriminated against.
4.4 Employees who engage or supervise
contractors or have any other official relationship with
contractors and have previously had or currently have a
relationship in a private or domestic capacity with contractors,
should disclose in writing that relationship to the Head of
Personnel and Development.
5. Appointment and other Employment Matters
5.1 Employees involved in appointments
should ensure that these are made on the basis of merit. It
would be unlawful for an employee to make an appointment which was
based on anything other than the ability of the candidate to
undertake the duties of the post. In order to avoid any
possible accusation of bias, employees should not be involved in an
appointment where they are related to an applicant, or have a close
personal relationship outside work with him or her.
5.2 Similarly, employees should not be
involved in decisions relating to discipline, promotion or pay
adjustments for any other employee with whom they have a close
personal relationship, for example, a relative, partner etc.
6. Outside Commitments
6.1 Employees' off-duty hours are, for
the most part, their personal concern, but they should not
subordinate their employment relationship with the Council to their
private interest or put themselves in a position where there is a
conflict of interests. The Council, subject to 6.2, will not
normally prevent an employee from undertaking additional employment
or other commitments, but any such employment etc must demonstrably
not conflict with or in any way weaken public confidence in the
conduct of the authority's business.
6.2 Employees above Spinal Column Point
30 shall normally be expected to devote their whole time service to
the work of the Council and shall not engage in any other
additional employment without the express prior written consent of
the Head of Personnel and Development.
6.3 To avoid any risk of conflict or
detriment, employees must consult their manager before committing
themselves to any additional employment and to inform the Head of
Personnel and Development in writing in accordance with 6.4
below.
6.4 A confidential register is kept by
the Head of Personnel and Development of all employees who have
declared their additional employment and for whom permission to
carry out such employment has been granted.
6.5 Additional guidance may be given from
time to time by the Council as to the categories of employment,
which may or may not be acceptable. In all cases, such
employment or other commitments must comply with all other
requirements of this Code. In considering applications for consent,
regard will be had to the views expressed in the Report of the PM's
Committee on Local Government Rules of Conduct (Cmd5636).
We recognise that employees sometimes
undertake work outside their own official duties, whether or not
for payment, which is clearly in the public interest and is to be
encouraged; participation in the work of an Officer's
professional institution, for example, or lectures at a local
college. But we understand that employees of the
Planning or Architectural departments of some planning authorities
are allowed to undertake, for payment, technical or presentational
work for an applicant for planning permission. Such work is
no doubt done in good faith and does not in fact lead to any kind
of special treatment for the application once it is
submitted. Nevertheless, the potential risks here are
so great, and the effect on the good name of local government so
unfavourable, that we think that the practice should be prohibited
outright, in relation not only to planning applications but also to
all other applications involving professional or technical
work. This view accords with advice given to their members by
the Local Authority associations in England and Wales in
1961-1962.
We recommend that authorities should ensure
that their employees at all relevant levels are aware of the
present standard conditions of service and that they should
invariably refuse permission when the employee is to be paid by a
member of the public for work that is in any way connected with the
scope of his/her official duties.
6.6 The Council has decided, with the
exception of employees preparing applications in respect of their
own property, that no applications of any kind which come before
them for approval should be prepared privately by an employee, even
where a reward is not involved, (e.g. when an employee wishes to
assist a friend the Council considers that the rule should
apply).
The Council consider that without this
rule:
(1) There could
arise on occasion accusations by the public that:
(a) plans prepared by Officers have received more favourable
treatment than plans which they consider to be
very similar;
(b) plans receive more favourable write up to Committee even
where the employee concerned with the
preparation of the plan is in no way concerned with the report to
Committee.
(2) Employees might be called on to advise the Council
on aspects of a case where they may be acting for the
private individuals involved.
(3) Difficulties will arise where appeals occur.
Employees concerned would not be able to act for their
client
against the Council, while an appellant might put forward in their
grounds of appeal that they have been
advised by an employee of the Council.
(4) An
employee of the Council may have to advise a committee that the
work of a fellow employee of the Council
is unsatisfactory.
(5) If
decisions on applications are delegated to employees for them to
have to decide applications prepared by
colleagues. The rule will not preclude private work which involves
only applications to other local authorities,
subject to the conditions set out in paragraph 6.1.
Any breach of this additional guidance will be regarded as a
serious breach of discipline.
7. Personal Interests
7.1 All employees must forthwith give
notice in writing to the Proper Officer of any financial interests
or non-financial interests which are clear and substantial and
which could bring about a conflict with the Authority's
interests. Any change must be similarly notified. Such
interests must also be disclosed in writing to the Head of
Personnel & Development who will notify the Monitoring Officer
where there are such interests [See also 10.2].
7.2 The personal interests to be
disclosed would include membership or acting as an Officer
(honorary or otherwise) of a body funded by the Council, membership
of a National Health Service Trust Board, involvement with an
organisation or pressure group or secret society as defined below
or any other involvement with an organisation which may seek to
influence the Council's policies.
7.3 For the purposes of this code, a
secret society is defined as being:
‘Any lodge, chapter,
society, trust or regular gathering or meeting, which:
(a) is not
open to members of the public who are not members of that lodge,
chapter, society or trust
(b) includes in the grant of membership an obligation on
the part of the member a requirement to make a
commitment (whether by oath or otherwise) of allegiance to the
lodge, chapter, society, gathering or meeting;
and
(c) includes, whether initially or subsequently, a
commitment (whether by oath or otherwise) of secrecy about
the
rules, membership or conduct of the lodge, chapter, society, trust,
gathering or meeting.
A lodge, chapter,
society, trust, gathering or meeting as defined above, should not
be regarded as a secret society
if it forms part of the activity of a
generally recognised religion.
8. Equality Issues
8.1 All employees shall ensure that the
Council's Race Equality, Equal Opportunities and Fair Service
Policies are complied with in addition to the requirements of the
law. All members of the local community, customers and other
employees have a right to be treated equally and with fairness
regardless of, for example, their race, colour, religion, ethnic
origin, national or regional origin, gender, marital status,
sexuality, age or class.
9. Separation of Roles During Tendering
9.1 Employees involved in the tendering
process and dealing with contractors should be clear on the
separation of client and contractor roles within the
authority. Senior Officers who have both a client and
contractor responsibility must be aware of the need for
accountability and openness.
9.2 Employees in contractor or client
units must exercise fairness and impartiality when dealing with all
customers, suppliers, other contractors and sub-contractors.
9.3 Employees who are privy to
confidential information on tenders or costs for either internal or
external contractors should not disclose that information to any
unauthorised party or organisation.
9.4 Employees contemplating a management
buyout, trade sale, hosting or other arrangements with an outside
provider should, as soon as they have formed a definite intent,
inform the appropriate manager and the Proper Officer in writing
(see paragraph 7.1 above) and withdraw from the contract awarding
processes.
9.5 Employees should ensure that no
special favour is shown to current or recent former employees or
their partners, close relatives or associates in awarding contracts
to businesses run by them or employing them in a senior or relevant
managerial capacity.
10. Corruption
10.1 Employees must be aware that it is a
serious criminal offence for them corruptly to receive or give any
gift, loan, fee, reward or advantage for doing or not doing
anything or showing favour or disfavour to any person in their
official capacity. If an allegation is made the law requires
the employee to demonstrate that any such rewards have not been
corruptly obtained.
10.2 Local government Act 1972 117 -
(Pecuniary Interests). This section provides that if an
employee knows that a contract in which he has a pecuniary interest
is before the local authority, he must give notice of his interest
to the authority. This does not, of course, apply to a
contract with him in his own name because the authority will then
know of his interest. Section 117(2) forbids an Officer
"under colour of his office or employment" to accept "any fee or
reward" whatsoever other than proper remuneration.
Note: The notice must
be addressed to the Section 151 Officer who will record it in a
book open to inspection by any member of the Council. If
further guidance is required in relation to specific cases,
reference should be made to the Section 151 Officer.
10.3 The Prevention of Corruption Acts
1906 and 1916 deal with the acceptance of gifts by way of
inducements or rewards:
(a) Under the Prevention of Corruption
Acts, 1906 and 1916, it is an offence for employees corruptly to
accept any gifts or consideration as an inducement or reward
for:
- doing, or refraining from doing, anything in
their official capacity; or
- showing favour or disfavour to any person in
their official capacity.
(b) Under the Prevention of Corruption Act
1916, any money, gift or consideration received by an employee in
public service from a person or organisation holding or seeking to
obtain a contract will be deemed by the courts to have been
received corruptly unless the employee proves to the contrary.
(See also the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices
Act 1889)
11. Use of Financial Resources
11.1 Employees must ensure that
they use public funds entrusted to them in a responsible and lawful
manner. They should strive to ensure value for money to the local
community and to avoid legal challenge to the authority.
Actions should at all times be in compliance with Financial
Regulations and Contract Procedure Rules.
12. Hospitality
12.1 A particular source of conflict between the private
and the public interest is the offer of gifts, hospitality and
other benefits. Whatever common practice may be in the
commercial world, public employment requires a standard of its
own.
The situations concerned are so diverse that
no precise rule can cover all eventualities. The following
guidance is given on that basis, but the practice should always be
to err on the side of caution. Additional guidance may be
given from time to time.
12.2 Employees should only accept offers
of hospitality if there is a genuine need to impart information or
represent the local authority in the community. Offers to
attend purely social or sporting functions should be accepted only
when these are part of the life of the community or where the
authority should be seen to be represented. It must be
properly authorised and recorded in the register kept for this
purpose by the employee's manager. If an employee is in any
doubt he/she should take advice from his/her manager before
acceptance who, in turn, may wish to seek advice from the
Proper Officer.
12.3 When hospitality has to be declined
the offeror should be courteously but firmly informed of the
procedures and standards operating within the authority.
12.4 Employees or their families must not
accept significant personal gifts from contractors, outside
suppliers, other persons or bodies who have or are known to be
seeking dealings of any kind whatsoever with the Council, and the
fact of such an offer should be disclosed to the manager and Proper
Officer.
12.5 Where the gift is only of token
value, e.g. an official or trade diary or calendar, it may be
accepted and in other cases where it is considered that refusal
would give unnecessary offence, employees must consult their
manager and follow his/her advice.
12.6 When receiving authorised
hospitality employees should be particularly sensitive as to its
timing in relation to decisions which the authority may be taking
affecting those providing the hospitality. If there is any
risk of conflict or criticism, the hospitality etcetera must be
declared to the employee’s manager and Proper Officer.
12.7 Acceptance by employees of
hospitality through attendance at relevant conferences and courses
is acceptable where it is clear the hospitality is corporate rather
than personal or where the Council gives consent in advance and
where any purchasing decisions will not be compromised. Where
visits to inspect equipment, etc are required, employees should
ensure that the Council meets the cost of such visits to avoid
jeopardising the integrity of subsequent purchasing decisions.
12.8 No employee may seek, for his or her
own use or, for the use of any other person specified by them,
goods or services, etc from the Council's suppliers and contractors
as a result of their employment with the Council.
12.9 Any gifts/hospitality, etc offered
(other than that offered/accepted under 12.5) should be notified to
an employee's manager and details of the same including whether
they were accepted or declined shall be recorded in a register
which shall be open for inspection by the Chief Executive and
Proper Officer.
13. Sponsorship - Giving and Receiving
13.1 Where an outside organisation wishes
to sponsor or is seeking to sponsor a local government activity,
whether by invitation, tender, negotiation or voluntarily, the
basic conventions concerning acceptance of gifts or hospitality
apply. Particular care must be taken when dealing with contractors
or potential contractors.
13.2 Where the authority wishes to sponsor an
event or service neither an employee nor any partner, spouse or
relative must benefit from such sponsorship in a direct way without
there being full disclosure to an appropriate manager of any such
interest. Similarly, where the authority through sponsorship,
grant aid, financial or other means, gives support in the
community, employees should ensure that impartial advice is given
and that there is no conflict of interest involved.
Next - Protocol on Member/Officer Relations
This webpage was updated on
9/29/2010