Ethical Governance

Standards you should expect from us

In Haringey we are committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct from our Councillors and officers. On this page you will find an outline of these standards. These standards can be found in:

• Part Five, Section A - Members' Code of Conduct and
• Part Four, Section K - Officer Employment Procedure Rules

of Haringey Council’s Constitution.

On this page you can also find out  about our

• Standards for Councillors - general principles and Standards Committee
• Councillors' Register of Interests and Hospitalities
• Customer Standards
• How to report a complaint, compliment or suggestion about a council service
• Whistleblowing

Standards for Councillors

The standards for elected Councillors are clearly set out in The Members’ Code of Conduct (see the link above). Listed below are the general principles of the code:

Principle	Explanation
Selflessness	Members should serve only the public interest and should never improperly confer an advantage or disadvantage on any person
Honesty and Integrity	Members should not place themselves in situations where their honesty and integrity may be questioned. They should not behave improperly and should on all occasions avoid the appearance of such behaviour.
Objectivity	Members should make decisions on merit, including when making appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards or benefits. Members should be accountable to the public for their actions and the manner in which they carry out their responsibilities. Members should co-operate fully and honestly with any scrutiny appropriate to their particular office.
Accountability	Members should be accountable to the public for their actions and the manner in which they carry out their responsibilities. They should co-operate fully and honestly with any scrutiny appropriate to their particular office.
Openness	Members should be as open as possible about their actions and those of their authority. Members should be prepared to give reasons for those actions.
Personal Judgement	Members may take account of the views of others, including their political groups, but should reach their own conclusions on the issues before them and act in accordance with those conclusions.
Respect for Others	Members should promote equality by not discriminating unlawfully against any person, and by treating people with respect, regardless of their race, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability. They should respect the impartiality and integrity of the authority's statutory officers, and its other employees.
Duty to uphold the Law	Members should uphold the law and, on all occasions, act in accordance with the trust that the public is entitled to place in them.
Stewardship	Members should do whatever they are able to do to ensure that their authorities use their resources prudently and in accordance with the law.
Leadership	Members should promote and support these principles by Leadership, and by example, and should act in a way that secures or preserves public confidence.

Standards Committee

Standards for Councillors are overseen by the independently chaired Standards Committee. The aim of the Committee is to promote high standards of ethical conduct among elected Councillors.

The Standards Committee page also outlines the procedure that you should go through if you want to report a complaint about a Haringey Councillor. The page gives details about the Standards Board for England, an independent body set up to ensure that standards of ethical conduct are maintained across authorities and to deal with complaints of misconduct against individual Members.

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Councillors’ Register of Interests and Hospitalities

Haringey’s Code of Conduct for Members also requires Members to register their financial and other interests in a maintained and publicly available register. This requirement is to ensure that Members do not have a personal vested interest in a decision made by the Council (whether implemented or not) which might prejudice their judgement. You can access an edited online version of the register from the Register of Councillors' Interests webpage. We also maintain a full register  which is open to the public at all reasonable hours and is available for inspection, by appointment, at: River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green, London N22 8HQ.

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Customer Standards

Our officers are committed to delivering high standards of service provision that includes transparent and accessible governance. The rules governing our officers' conduct are outlined in Haringey Council’s Constitution.

Haringey also has a separate Customer Charter that outlines the standards that you should expect from all council officers.

Your feedback helps us to improve our services and ensures that we treat everyone fairly. If you are unhappy with something that we have not done, then please let us know.

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How to report a complaint, compliment or suggestion

The complaints, compliments and suggestions webpages explain the various ways that you can contact us to report your feedback.

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Whistleblowing

We also have a whistleblowing policy in place for council employees, staff of council contractors, agency staff and trainees. You can find the whistleblowing policy in the attached files section below.

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Attached Files

Filename	Filetype	Size
whistleblowing policy june 2008.pdf	PDF	72K
PDF documents require Adobe Acrobat reader. Please click here to download.

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