Alton Town Council was due to make a second attempt at ensuring the actions of its employees will always be whiter than white on January 8.

During the full council meeting at Alton Town Hall, councillors were expected to review their bribery and corruption policy for staff.

They had deferred a decision on it at their last meeting in November because they wanted the staffing committee to give further consideration to two points.

Firstly they wanted the staffing committee to come up with what it thought was appropriate wording for what constituted normal and appropriate hospitality.

Secondly they wanted to amend the wording of the policy to include the wording as resolved by full council as to who the policy for staff referred.

Their revised wording was: “This policy applies to all individuals working at all levels and grades, including the town clerk, employees whether permanent, fixed term or temporary, consultants, contractors, trainees, seconded staff, casual workers, agency staff, volunteers, interns, wherever located - collectively referred to as workers in this policy.”

The staffing committee considered what wording would be appropriate in terms of gifts and hospitality, and concluded that the policy should adopt the wording on gifts as contained in the Gov.uk document entitled ‘Gifts and hospitality policy updated January 14, 2021’.

This document said: “The acceptance of gifts from interested business parties could be presented as promoting a conflict of interest that might arguably have compromised the impartiality of staff in the decisions that they were required to make.”

The staffing committee’s advice was that gifts or offers of gifts of more than £25 for any one gift should be reported to the town clerk, and that gifts or offers of gifts to the town clerk of more than £25 for any one gift should be reported to the staffing committee.

If any gift is of any “significant value”, it should be declined, said the staffing committee, although it added: “It is not possible to put forward hard and fast rules for when gifts may be accepted, since in practice this will depend upon the circumstances.”

Putting forward general principles for the acceptance of gifts, the staffing committee said a gift must be of “nominal or notional” value.

A gift should not be accepted if it means the cumulative value of gifts accepted from any one organisation or individual exceeds £100 in any 12-month period, or if the value exceeds £25 for any one gift.

Gifts must be given for an appropriate reason and at an appropriate time - not before the issuing of an opinion, determination or contract.

Any gift must be of a one-off or irregular nature so it could not be viewed as a regular source of income by HMRC for personal taxation purposes.

Details of all gifts accepted or declined should be recorded in the council’s gifts and hospitality register, as fully as possible and without delay.

The recommendation requested that councillors adopted the bribery and corruption policy for staff as recommended and tabled by the staffing committee.