The Complainant, a Clerk to the Council, was concerned that despite his advice, the Member had failed to declare personal and prejudicial interests in Council meetings when discussing a specific Council project. The issue was continuing and was hampering the Council in its progression of the project. After investigation, we decided the evidence was suggestive of failures to declare such interests in breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Local Authorities. On this occasion, as the Member: appeared in the end to recognise her interests were problematic, albeit late in the day; had resigned from the Council; had not sought to hide her interests; did not gain personally, along with her explanations as to why she had not understood her interests were personal and prejudicial, we decided not to take further action. We provided advice to the member however and warned her that should further similar issues arise in the future we would take into consideration the decision and advice we had issued.
