Members of City of York Council have agreed to the councillors code of conduct following a meeting of full council yesterday evening, Tuesday 5th March.

The recommendation from the council's Standards committee was to adopt this new national code of conduct which will apply to all councillors, including parish councillors, in York.

The role of the Standards committee is to introduce, monitor and develop the new national code of conduct for councillors in York, which will come into effect on 1st May 2002, following the Local Government Act 2000. They will advise the city council and parish councils in its area on issues of personal ethics and openness and will receive and report to the council on any written allegations of member misconduct, including recommendations on action to be taken.

Roger McMeeking, chair of the Standards committee, said: "Councillors now have to give a written undertaking to abide by the code otherwise they will cease to be councillors.

"With the Standards committee and the code of conduct, we hope to provide members of the public with the confidence that their complaint of a breach of the code will be dealt with properly and we will be working with councillors over the next few months to look at how complaints are dealt with and how we will work with them."

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