City of York Council to make action plan after 'damning' report

Labour councillor Bob Webb called a Local Government Association report on City of York Council "damning"

A scheme to boost a council's standards is planned after the Local Government Association (LGA) warned there was "something seriously wrong" with it.

The LGA's Mark Edgell said he doubted deep-seated issues at City of York Council had been resolved following a public interest report (PIR) in 2021.

The PIR followed an "arguably unlawful" payment made to the authority's former chief executive.

Councillor Katie Lomas said she wanted the action plan agreed before May.

Ms Lomas, who chaired a meeting of the authority's audit and governance committee, said the three-year plan should be confirmed by the spring so that it did not get forgotten about or diluted.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, failings around conflicts of interest, the relationships between officers and councillors and the behaviour of some councillors had been raised repeatedly at York over a number of years.

'Start afresh'

Mr Edgell said there were "pockets" of councillors still not following the code of conduct and the council should be "worried" by the LGA's report on its response to the PIR.

"If we've got to the stage where members are complaining about officers, it says there's something seriously wrong with the organisation," he added.

Labour's Councillor Bob Webb called the report "damning", while Liberal Democrat councillors said culture issues at the council dated back decades.

Mr Edgell called on the authority to publish who had attended new training sessions as he suspected not everyone had completed them.

He also urged the council to take the opportunity of the May local elections - in which every councillor in York is up for election - to "start afresh".

In a statement issued after the meeting, deputy leader of the Lib Dem group Councillor Anne Hook said the LGA report concluded it was "satisfied with the action and implementation plan to address the recommendations in the PIR report".