Understanding conflicts of interest part of new training programme for Peterborough councillors involved in council companies

Understanding conflicts of interest and managing council-owned companies are among the key areas councillors and officers at Peterborough City Council (PCC) will receive training in as part of a new teaching programme.

The programme, “developed and delivered by external professions”, will be compulsory for PCC’s elected councillors and salaried officers who sit on company boards and will also explain the role of a company director.

The training will extend too to all members of PCC’s cabinet – its decision-making committee led by council leader Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald (Conservatives, West).

The move is part of a wider effort to make PCC’s training more robust and to ensure that there is appropriate scrutiny of companies in which the council is a shareholder.

PCC’s legal director, Rochelle Tapping, said that, at present, the council doesn’t “necessarily seem to have a structure in place as to how we approach training” and that “it’s really crucial that both members and officers sitting on the boards are robustly advised about how local authority companies operate”.

In the past, she continued, members have simply been given a 30-page guidance document on council-owned companies, which she says is “not sufficient”.

Presenting the proposals at a council committee – which adopted her recommendations – Ms Tapping heard from Cllr Marco Cereste (Conservatives, Hampton Vale) that he believes councillors without the requisite experience should receive training on how a business works more generally.

He also suggested that the council should set up a new organisation that specialises in applying for grants from the Government, charities and other bodies offering funding as he’s “not actually sure we tap into much of [them] or any of [them]”.

New internal unit will have central oversight of council companies

Aside from the new training programme, the recommendations Ms Tapping presented included a new council officer-led unit with central oversight of all council companies as well each individual company having a lead council officer.

They also included adding decisions involving council companies to PCC’s existing scrutiny committee’s remit in order to allow councillors to “provide constructive challenge”.

“The committee will have a role in ensuring that the companies are making sufficient returns on investment and that any social objectives are not lost,” a council report explaining the proposals said.

“The committee will also hold the executive to account in relation to achieving the objectives of the companies in line with business cases applicable.”

Having councillors scrutinise these decisions is normal for a local authority, Ms Tapping said; in fact, “they do this everywhere else”.

The recommendations come as PCC works to re-define its relationships with the companies it either owns or has partnerships with; already this year it has brought its asset management, economic development and procurement teams in house.

The changes come in the wake of a new executive team being introduced to the council as well as its work to meet the recommendations of its improvement plan, adopted in 2021.