Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of reintroducing a standards board for local councils.

We abolished the Standards Board regime as it was a top down, centralist regime which had unfortunately become a vehicle for petty, malicious and politically motivated complaints. In its place the Localism Act 2011 created a robust framework for local authority standards arrangements. This requires local authorities to promote and maintain high standards of conduct and adopt a code that is consistent with the seven ‘Nolan’ Principles.

The Government is awaiting early in the New Year the publication of the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s Review of Local Government Ethical Standards. The Government will consider the CSPL report carefully, and we will publish our response in due course.