Goodbye Standards for England

Standards for England’s regulatory function ended this week. Olwen Dutton looks at the transition period.

A new month and a new approach to standards in local government. Earlier this week saw Standards for England (SfE) close its doors, or at least its active website, and it is now focusing its resources on the closedown of the organisation on 31 March.

The commencement of provisions in Chapter 7 of Part 1 of the Localism Act 2011 means that SfE's regulatory function has now ceased and they no longer have powers to accept new referrals from local standards committees or to conduct investigations into complaints against members.

Perhaps equally importantly for local authorities struggling to deal with conduct issues for a few months yet, SfE will no longer have a role in providing guidance on the existing standards framework.

The existing guidance that was available on their website can still be accessed for the moment, but SfE is in the process of archiving it and it won't be kept up to date.

The changes in the standards regime brought in through the Localism Act will mean that any existing information has to be treated with caution once the regime changes completely, but in the meantime it will remain useful to local authorities who will be dealing with standards cases until 1 July 2012, and a lot of the guidance may also be of use in considering matters to be taken into account in setting up new processes, even though these will be different.

Bevan Brittan has kept a library of most of the guidance and reports that SfE has produced and will be pleased to make this available to local authorities, should this be of assistance. If you would like help in accessing any SfE guidance, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

It is anticipated that the uncompleted cases which local authorities have sent to Standards for England will be sent back for the authority to deal with as they think fit. Given that it tended to be the more difficult and serious cases that were passed up from Local Hearings, it is not clear how authorities will deal with these, as in many cases they may be unwilling to see them abandoned, especially after going through the necessary process to have them sent up in the first place.

Olwen Dutton is a partner at Bevan Brittan. She can be contacted on 0870 194 5006 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..