Recent news reports that former MPs are now banned from lobbying the UK Government for six months after stepping down is good news for transparency and ethical behaviour. Parliamentarians, Ministers and senior civil servants are on the same ambit of government, so six months is a sensible ‘cooling off’ period between being an MP and undertaking any lobbying of that tier of Government.
In the same way, we think there are similar dangers for councillors who step down and immediately start lobbying their own local authority. Whilst a councillor, the law and the council’s code prevents councillors from acting as a paid advocate to lobby their own local authority, and it seems sensible to extend this six months ‘cooling off’ period to councillors too.
At Thorncliffe, we’ve decided unilaterally to tell our 35 strong team that, if they step down from being a councillor, they should continue not working in their own local authority area for a period of up to a year. It’s an industry-leading position, but we think it’s the right thing to do.
We also promote the Government’s new lobbying registration system, the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL), and were active in helping ORCL to test their systems prior to their launch in March. For councillors working at Thorncliffe, we have our triple lock system. It means that no councillor we employ can work in their own local authority area – the law says so, their own council says so, as does our code.
As for MPs, we’re glad they’ve caught up, and we hope the industry looks favourably on extending the ‘cooling off’ period to councillors.