Officer relationships with party groups
No Officer of the Council shall attend any party political group as an employee of the Council without the agreement of the Chief Executive and party political groups will not have the power to require attendance of individual Officers unless agreed by the Chief Executive.
Officers attending any group meetings, shall not divulge to other groups the contents of any discussion or debate which takes place.
No reports should be produced by Officers specifically for party groups without the express permission of the Chief Executive and Officers shall not conduct research for party political purposes.
Officers will provide publicly available attendance details relating to individual Elected Members to group officials from the same party or in the case of other parties (or independents) with the authorisation of the Member concerned. Elected Members will always be notified that such information is being provided.
Officers are not permitted to allow the use of Council resources for party political purposes, other than where such use has been properly authorised and where relevant, the appropriate charge has been made.
An Officer, as a member of the public, is entitled to raise with their Councillor any complaint about the services of the Council. Employees are expected to do this in their own time. If an Officer complaint concerns any aspect of their work with the Council this should always be discussed with their line manager in the first instance. Where this is not appropriate then another appropriate manager. If this does not lead to the concerns being adequately addressed then the Officer should make use of the Council’s appropriate HR procedures. An Officer must not approach Elected Members to raise any work related issues as this could lead to disciplinary action for not following council procedures for managing such issues. In circumstances where concerns relate to potential allegation of fraud, corruption, safeguarding or other serious concerns; these can be raised through the Council’s ‘Whistle Blowing’ policy and procedure.
- Roles of Elected Members
- Roles of Officers
- Principles underlying Member/Officer relations
- Undue Influence
- Relationships between Chairs/Elected Members of the Policy and other Committees including Audit & Governance, Licensing and Planning Committees and Officers
- Ceremonial Mayor
- Officer relationships with party groups
- Elected Members in their ward role and Officers
- Councillor access to documents and information
- Elected Members and Officers who are members of Outside Organisations and other bodies
- Publicity material, media relations and press releases
- Correspondence
- Internet and Social Networking Use
- Breaches of the protocol
- Concluding comments
- In the event that an Officer approaches a Member regarding any aspect of their work with the Council the Member must not become involved in this issue and should advise the officer to follow the procedures detailed in the previous section.