” … The inquiry comes after a government adviser warned that the Coalition “threw out the baby with the bathwater” when it abolished the controversial Standards Board for England that enforced a nationwide code of conduct for councillors.
Dr Jane Martin, the member of the Committee leading the inquiry says she “regularly receives correspondence” from the public expressing concern about councillors’ behaviour. …
There are concerns that council standards committees can only “censure” politicians, rather than suspend them in the most serious cases. …”
Source: Sunday Telegraph
Owl says: once again, too little too late:
See and hear our own disgraced Tory ex-councillor Graham Brown (ex-chief of the equally disgraced council-run East Devon Business Forum) explaining that “if I can’t get planning, nobody will” but that he won’t work for peanuts:
and the chapter on East Devon in Anna Minton’s Spinwatch report “Scaring the living daylights out of people – the local lobby and the failure of democracy”:
https://www.annaminton.com/single-post/2016/03/21/Scaring-The-Living-Daylights-Out-Of-People
East Devon Watch 