Committee details

The main purpose of a Standards hearing sub-Committee is to decide whether a member has breached the Code of Conduct and, if so, to decide if a sanction should be applied and what form the sanction should take. The membership of a hearing sub-Committee will be the same as the corresponding consideration sub-Committee for that case. This sub-committee must be chaired by an independent member of the standards committee.

The sub-Committee will seek to establish ‘Findings of Fact’, upon which they will decide whether or not the subject member failed to follow the code of conduct. The Investigating officer will summarise and ask questions on his/her report, and the subject member, complainant and witness may be asked to give evidence.

If the sub-Committee finds that there has been a breach of the code of conduct they will then consider the appropriate sanction for the breach, taking into consideration any mitigating or exacerbating circumstances.

As with all exempt information decisions, the sub-committee will decide whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.