09 April 2009
‘Planning Ahead’ essential for standards committees
The Standards Board for England is working with local authorities to maintain an ethical approach to planning applications - by providing them with a planning game for standards committees.
It is available for download from the ‘Resources’ section of the Standards Board’s website, www.standardsboard.gov.uk.
Called ‘Planning Ahead’, the game is used together with a presentation, also downloadable, and discussion to help standards committees get to grips with the ethical challenges of the planning process and the types of complaints and cases they might expect to deal with. A high proportion of complaints in the past about local authority members’ conduct have related to planning matters, and now that allegations are handled locally, most standards committee members will come across planning issues when assessing complaints or hearing cases.
Having a good understanding of the complete planning process will also help standards committees to promote and champion good planning standards among councillors and officers.
The game features fictional scenarios for committee members to work through, using cards which they can play at the points where they think ethical risks might occur, and where different parts of the Code of Conduct are relevant. It was developed from a version used in a session at last year’s Annual Assembly of Standards Committees, which proved so popular that the Standards Board has decided to make it available online.
The session is designed to be delivered by monitoring officers using the materials provided by the Standards Board, and has been created in partnership with the Planning Advisory Service. It is aimed at groups of up to ten members, but larger group sessions are possible and both the Standards Board and the Planning Advisory Service may be able to run such sessions on request. Monitoring officers wanting further information on this can contact the Standards Board on 0161 817 5300.
Ends.
For media enquiries, contact the press office on 0161 817 5400 or email press.enquiries@standardsboard.gov.uk.
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