Tough new measures that crack down on genuine corruption and increase transparency in public life by requiring councillors to declare their financial and trade union dealings will take effect next week, Local Government Minister Bob Neill announced today.
In the drive for greater transparency across all Government, from 1 July, councillors will be required to register certain pecuniary interests, including trade union dealings on a publicly available register. Deliberate failure to declare interests could result in a criminal conviction.
These new measures, outlined in the Localism Act, will replace the bureaucratic and controversial Standards Board regime, which ministers believe had become a system of nuisance complaints and petty, sometimes malicious, allegations of councillor misconduct that sapped public confidence in local democracy. The old regime also raised concerns that it discouraged councillors from whistle-blowing or criticising waste and inefficiency in local government, as it opened them up to complaints by local authority officers.
Local Government Minister Bob Neill said:
"The Standards Board regime led to an explosion in petty, partisan and malicious complaints that dragged down the reputation of local government, as well as suppressing freedom of speech.
"Our reforms take a tough stance on council corruption by making serious misconduct a criminal offence, accompanied by the sunlight of transparency on financial and union interests. Such reforms will give local people the confidence that councillors are putting local residents' interests first."