Issue - meetings

This report proposes two amendments to the Council’s constitution related to updates to the LGA Model Code of Conduct and providing a delegation to the Director of Finance to write off irrecoverable debts.

The council received a report setting out changes to the code of conduct and debt write offs which had been recommended by the Policy and Resources Committee.

Councillor Oliver Cooper queried whether the council would write off all debts from companies that had become insolvent. The Chief Executive clarified that only irrecoverable debts would be written off.

Members agreed by General Assent that the proposed constitutional amendments set out in paragraph 2.3 and 2.5 on the Recommendation from the Policy and Resources Committee: Constitution Amendments report be APPROVED.

This report proposes two amendments to the Council’s constitution related to updates to the LGA Model Code of Conduct and providing a delegation to the Director of Finance to write off irrecoverable debts.

The Associate Director – Legal and Democratic Services and Monitoring Officer, Stephen Rix, presented the report, confirming the proposal to adopt the latest version of the Local Government Association’s Code of Conduct, and providing the Director of Finance with the authority to write-off irrecoverable debts.

The Director of Finance confirmed that the delegation for write-offs would only cover those debts where they were genuinely irrecoverable, as the Council had no recourse to recover as a result of liquidation or bankruptcy.

It was suggested that where more substantial amounts were written off, this should be reported to the Policy and Resources Committee. The Director of Finance agreed that in future, any amounts written off above the current delegation of £3k would be reported to the Committee through the regular budget reports.

The recommendations in the report were agreed by assent