2.0 Officer advice to Political and Party Groups
2.1 There is now statutory recognition for political groups and party groups are a well established feature of modern local government. It is common practice, particularly for party groups, to give preliminary consideration to matters of Council business in advance of such matters being considered by the relevant Council decision making body. Officers may properly be called upon to support and contribute to the deliberations by both political and party groups.
2.2 The support provided by officers can take many forms, ranging from a briefing meeting with a Chairman or Spokesperson prior to a Committee meeting to a presentation to a full party group meeting. Whilst in practice such officer support is likely to be in most demand from whichever party group is for the time being in control of the Council, it is an important principle that such support is available to all political or party groups.
2.3 Certain points must however be clearly understood by all those participating in this type of process, members and officers alike. In particular:
(a) officer support in these circumstances must not extend beyond providing information and advice in relation to matters of Council business. Officers must not be involved in advising on matters of party business. The observance of this distinction will be assisted if officers are not expected to be present at meetings, or parts of meetings, when matters of party business are to be discussed;
(b) party group meetings, whilst they form part of the preliminaries to Council decision making, are not empowered to make decisions on behalf of the Council. Conclusions reached at such meetings do not therefore rank as Council decisions and it is essential that they are not interpreted or acted upon as such;
(c) similarly, where officers provide information and advice to a political or party group meeting in relation to a matter of Council business, this cannot act as a substitute for providing all necessary information and advice to the relevant Committee when the matter in question is considered; and
(d) Members often seek officers’ assistance in drafting resolutions or amendments which they wish to move at a meeting. It is proper for an officer to advise on the wording of such a proposal to ensure it is accurate, practical and lawful but there can be no inference that the officers supports the substance or merits of the proposition.
2.4 Special care needs to be exercised whenever officers are involved in providing information and advice to a political or party group meeting which includes persons who are not members of the Council. Such persons will not be bound by the National Code of Local Government Conduct (in particular, the provisions concerning the declaration of interests and confidentiality) and for this and other reasons officers may not be able to provide the same level of information and advice as they would to a members only meeting.
2.5 Officers must respect the confidentiality of any political or party group discussions at which they are present in the sense that they should not relay the content of any such discussion to another party group. It follows that whilst there is no reason why other such groups should not be aware that a Group has sought and received officer advice or be inhibited from requesting officer support themselves no political point should be made of that fact.
2.6 Any particular cases of difficulty or uncertainty in this area of officer advice to political or party groups should be raised with the Chief Executive who will discuss it with the relevant group leader(s).
Back to top