Councillors failing to publicly declare gifts, business interests and who they work for, Lib Dem leader claims

Rochdale councillors are failing to ‘keep the highest form of conduct’ by not declaring gifts, business interests and who they work for according to the leader of the authority’s Liberal Democrats group.

Councillor Andy Kelly has called for the council’s constitutional working party to look into the matter and urged members to declare their interests on the council website ‘in a timely fashion’.

Speaking at a meeting of the full council, he referred to news of chaotic scenes at the House of Commons and noted that Suella Braverman had earlier resigned as home secretary ‘on the basis of conduct’.

Councillor Kelly said he had concerns over the public perception of politicians at all levels – from Westminster to borough councils.

“We are expected to – and should – keep the highest form of conduct in our communities and in our borough,” he told councillors on Wednesday night.

“We need to do that and there are ways in which we can do it and there are some simple points of conduct we need to do and, I’m afraid colleagues, we don’t do.”

Councillor Kelly claimed that the council’s constitution had been ‘tinkered with’ so many times the checks and balances on members’ behaviour had now failed – and councillors should take ‘collective responsibility’ for it.

“Some of this is about the gifts we sometimes occasionally receive and declaring them publicly,” he added.

“We are fortunate enough to sometimes be invited to events. I made a point at the last council meeting about football and cricket [matches] and so on and so forth.

“But if the value is more than £25 it’s up to us to declare it on the [council] website. Similarly, it’s up to us to declare who we work for, who our partner works for, what property we own and what businesses we have.

“Even if it’s a failing business we have a responsibility to put that on the website – and we don’t do it.”

Council leader Neil Emmott agreed it was ‘important’ that the constitutional working group looked at the issue, but said any specific concerns should be raised with the monitoring officer.

“If there are things to look at, let’s look at them,” he said. “I don’t know which members have not declared things on the council website – that’s for the monitoring officer to look at and those individual members.”

He also suggested that the all-out election held in Rochdale this year may be a factor.

“We have a lot of new members of the council from all political parties and possibly some people have been a bit confused as to what they needed to declare.”

Councillor Emmott also assured Councillor Kelly he would be invited to the next meeting of the constitution working party, which had not met since he last raised concerns over the issue.

Rochdale full council met at Number One Riverside on Wednesday night (19 October).

Nick Statham, Local Democracy Reporting Service