TWO Forest district councillors will receive a public ticking off from standards watchdogs.   

The Forest Council’s standards committee agreed that a public statement will be issued expressing “deep disappointment” that Cllr Alan Preest (Con, Lydney North) failed to attend compulsory standards training and that the authority’s leader, Cllr Patrick Molyneux (Con, Woolaston and Hewelsfield), did not apologise after an exchange with a fellow councillor.   

Both dispute that their behaviour merits public censure with Cllr Preest saying he missed the training because of illness and no steps had been taken to reorganise it, while Cllr Molyneux said he thought he had apologised to Cllr Len Lawton (Con, Newent Central) at a previous meeting.   

The decision to make a public statement also highlighted how few options standards watchdogs have when it comes to dealing with ‘errant’ councillors.

There were 20 complaints to the standards committee last year, 12 of which were against district councillors and half of them were made by fellow members of the council.

All councillors were ordered by the standards commitee to attend training on what is expected of them after a number of issues arose last autumn. 

The council’s most senior legal officer, monitoring officer Claire Hughes, said: “I provided training in December and January to all but three members.

“Two have completed the training at home but one member has not attended the training and failed to engage with me to rearrange or train at home.”

Green councillor Sid Phelps (Lydbrook and Ruardean) asked what sanctions were available.

He said: “The reputation of this council needs to be raised. This member (Cllr Preest) is obviously not co-operating and doesn’t feel he needs to play ball.

“We should be seriously talking about what sanctions are possible or at least get his group leader to get a grip. One bad apple besmirches all our reputations.”

Ms Hughes said many of the sanctions that had previously been available such as suspending councillors were abolished by the government in 2011 and it had not been possible to bring in a tougher regime locally.

She said: “The sanctions are now so limited that is quite dificult to get people to do things.

“You must go on training – we’ve tried that. You have to apologise – we’ve tried that. You can stop people being on commtteees. You can’t remove people from the executive, you can recommend the leader does so but it is a matter for the leader. 

“It is so limited, you can do a public announcement but that is really about it.

“It is quite constrained which doesn’t send out a very good message in my personal opinion about members’ conduct.”

Cllr Preest told the Review: “I missed the training because I was ill and I have had no communication about it since.

“As a member of Gloucestershire County Council, I am fully up-to-date with standards training.”

Cllr Molyneux said: “I thought I had apologised at the last standards meeting but I will check.”

No deadline was set for the statement to be issued but it is unlikely to be before the county council elections on May 4 because of the law on what can be said by public bodies in the run-up to a vote.