These Regulations may be cited as the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) Regulations 1993 and shall come into force on 1st April 1993.

In these Regulations—

• “the Act” means the Local Government and Housing Act 1989,

• “chief officer”, in relation to a relevant authority, means—

  1. a

     the head of their paid service, designated under section 4(1) of the Act;

  2. b

     their monitoring officer;

  3. c

     a statutory chief officer mentioned in paragraph (a), (c) or (d) of section 2(6) of the Act, or

  4. d

     a non-statutory chief officer (within the meaning of section 2(7) of the Act);

• and any reference to an appointment or purported appointment of a chief officer includes a reference to the engagement or purported engagement of such an officer under a contract of employment;

• “the Common Council” means the Common Council of the City of London in its capacity as a local authority, police authority or port health authority;

• “disciplinary action” in relation to an officer of an authority means any action occasioned by alleged misconduct which, if proved, would, according to the usual practice of the authority, be recorded on the officer’s personal file, and includes any proposal for dismissal of an officer for any reason other than redundancy or permanent ill-health or infirmity of mind or body, but does not include failure to renew a contract of employment for a fixed term unless the authority has undertaken to renew such a contract;

• “monitoring officer” means the officer designated under section 5(1) of the Act;

• “relevant authority” means a county or district council, the council of a London borough, the Common Council and the Council of the Isles of Scilly; and

• “relevant joint committee”, in relation to an authority, means a joint committee on which the authority are represented.