Issue - meetings

The Chairman reported receipt of the above mentioned motion from

Councillors Terry Chivers and Jeff Osborn. Accordingly, Councillor Terry Chivers moved the following motion which was duly seconded by Cllr Jeff Osborn:

‘Further to this Council adopting its, Code of Conduct at Full Council in February, this Council considers amending the Code of Conduct to include a register of gifts and hospitality.

The current code states,

The existing Code states, at paragraph 2, ‘you must not place yourself under a financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence you in the performance of your official duties.’

To protect members and to ensure full; transparency, for Wiltshire Council, and its members this Council adopts a register of interests for all gifts and hospitably over £25.00’.

In speaking to his motion, Councillor Chivers expressed surprise that there was no longer a requirement to register gifts and hospitality. He considered that for the reasons stated in his motion, such a requirement should be reinstated. 

In response, Councillor Stuart Wheeler, Cabinet member for Hubs, Heritage & Arts, Governance and Support Services reminded Council of its previous deliberations on this issue and referred to the relevant extracts of the Code of Conduct. He agreed that it would be appropriate for members to register gifts and hospitality received. In order to simplify the process and avoid costs, Councillor Wheeler suggested that this could be on a self registration basis.  Councillor Wheeler therefore suggested referral of the motion to the Standards Committee.

Resolved:

That motion no. 14 – Code of Conduct and Gifts and Hospitality be referred to the Standards Committee.

The Chairman reported receipt of the above mentioned motion from Councillors Terry Chivers and Jeff Osborn. 

Accordingly, Councillor Terry Chivers moved the following motion which was duly seconded by Cllr Jeff Osborn:

‘To counter all the negative publicity that Wiltshire Council has received for not operating change giving parking ticket machines, this extra money (that is in reality is not ours) should be returned to the community by way of an equivalent increase in the amount made to community area grants.’

Cllr Chivers took the opportunity to promote his motion to Council and in so doing emphasised that the Council needed to do something positive on this and allocate the extra money referred to in his motion between the Area Boards.

Cllr John Thomson, Cabinet member for Highways and Transport responded to the motion. He explained that this had stemmed from the Council responding to a freedom of information request by a newspaper made to 350 Councils on overpayments on car parking. This Council unlike a number of Councils, had provided all the information requested but was then compared to much smaller authorities with fewer car parks such as smaller boroughs and district councils. This Council’s rate for overpayments as a result of not giving out change averaged at approximately 3% compared to between 6.5% to 7% for other authorities. Cllr Thomson referred to the significant costs of installing ticket machines that did provide change and the costs involved in servicing them. Such a move would increase the cost by 10p. He concluded that he considered the motion to be unsound, undeliverable, not well researched and should not be adopted.

Having been moved by the Chairman and seconded and on being put to the vote, it was

Resolved:

That the motion be debated.

The Chairman invited Group Leaders to speak on the motion before opening the debate to other members. During the debate, Cllr Hubbard proposed the following amendment which was duly seconded:

 ‘That this motion is referred to the relevant scrutiny task group to explore what steps can be taken to avoid people paying more than they should for car parking’.

The debate then centred on the amendment. Cllr Chivers indicated that he would accept the amendment.

The motion as amended was then put to the vote and LOST. It was therefore

Resolved:

That motion no 9 – Car Parking Ticket Machines be NOT adopted.