Councillor Roles

All councillors are advocates for their communities and are ‘case workers’ for their individual constituents when advice or support is requested. Councillors’ roles vary within the governance structures of the Council. The Council will have a constitution (based on models published by the Welsh Assembly Government) setting out decision-making structures and procedures, terms of reference of internal committees, roles and responsibilities of individual positions of office, standing orders for meetings, codes of conduct, and financial regulations.

All councillors are members of the full Council which sets the overall policies and budget of the Council. A small proportion of councillors will form the cabinet or executive board with all other members being active in the overview and scrutiny of the performance of the Council, other organisations and external bodies. There are regulatory committees dealing with the planning and licensing functions. Councillors are also appointed to external local bodies such as school governing bodies and local partnerships, either as representatives of the Council, as trustees or directors in their own right.

Every council must have a Standards Committee. The Committee is responsible for adopting a local code of conduct for monitoring conduct, and for adjudicating on cases of misconduct. All councillors are required to sign the code of conduct to ensure they uphold the highest standards; indeed, the rules governing councillors’ behaviour is actually far stricter than that for AMs or MPs! The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales will hear written complaints about alleged cases of misconduct and can take several courses of action including referral of cases to the Adjudication Panel for Wales.

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