New rules to ease councillor and officer friction
FRICTION between City Hall staff and elected members has forced the council to introduce a new set of rules to help them work better together.
It follows criticism by the Local Government Association (LGA) which found cases of dysfunction and animosity between Bristol city councillors and officers.
A peer review report in September 2018 by the LGA, the national body for local authorities in England, said: “Between members and officers, for the most part we saw and heard about respectful relationships. However, this was not universally so and in some areas we heard examples where the opposite was true.”
It recommended the council should review its member/officer protocol, a set of guidelines setting out the two distinct roles in the authority and how they should Cllr Clive Stevens behave towards each other.
Audit committee members have now approved the new version, which will go to full council to be adopted as official policy.
It also clarifies the role of scrutiny councillors which also came under fire from the LGA.
Last year’s report said: “It is positive that opposition members chair scrutiny and can often be a sign of political maturity.
“However, we heard from nearly all those stakeholders we spoke (irrespective of political colours) that scrutiny is too often seen as a place for political point-scoring.
“We were told that at times some members may have crossed a line of appropriate challenge to officers.
“It is crucial that officers are both encouraged and enabled to be open and challenged appropriately.”
The council’s new protocol says: “Respect between members and officers, both personally and for their different roles, is crucial to the successful operation of the council’s business.
“The role of officers is to give advice and information to members to inform their decision-making and to implement the policies and decisions of the council.
“In giving their advice, it is the responsibility of the officer to present their professional views and recommendations.
“Members must not pressurise an officer to make a recommendation contrary to their professional view or seek to persuade an officer to withdraw a report.”
The guidance also says officers can expect of councillors “not to be subject to bullying or to be put under pressure, taking into consideration the seniority of roles and potential vulnerability of officers in junior roles”.
Legal and democractic services director Tim O’Gara told the committee: “Because of the sheer volume of information that was in the previous protocol, we have been at pains to pare it down. The substance of it has not changed materially.”
Committee chairman Cllr Mark Brain said during his 16 years as a councillor, he had received “one or two answers from officers that I knew were not true”.
Cllr Brain said that despite the new guidelines containing a requirement for officers to give “timely responses to enquiries and complaints within seven working days”, that did not happen in about 80 per cent of cases.
Cllr Clive Stevens said he was concerned the protocol stated members had a right to view council documents, including confidential material, which were “reasonably necessary to enable them to exercise their duties”.
He said: “You could have a particular regime where you’re asking members to prove why this information is necessary but you won’t know because you don’t know what the information is.”
Mr O’Gara said: “I am mindful of the point you’re making and I’m keen to get some proper guidance around it.”