A North Herts councillor has apologised after he was accused of breaking the district council's code of conduct.

Chris Lucas, a Liberal Democrat representative for Hitchin Priory ward, was asked to apologise to senior officers at North Herts Council after an external officer concluded that remarks he made at a public meeting "unfairly cast aspersions on the integrity of these officers".

Cllr Lucas initially declined to apologise, and a standards committee meeting was set to be held on Wednesday, March 4, to consider whether he had broken the code of conduct. It was cancelled at short notice after Cllr Lucas offered an apology.

The accusation that Cllr Lucas had broken the council's code of conduct related to a council meeting on October 2 last year, when he asked cabinet member Mick Debenham two questions related to the council's safety advisory group (SAG) and events held on council land.

While asking his second question, Cllr Lucas said he had been "told or advised to avoid referring to any specific event" and quoted from an email sent to councillors by the authority's chief executive officer, Anthony Roche.

He asked whether "events that follow advice such as that [sent by the chief executive] should have taken place on council land".

The meeting's chair then stopped Cllr Debenham from answering, and said he had been "advised" to do so.

The council's monitoring officer, Isabelle Alajooz, said Cllr Lucas's question was about "a specific event" and that there was "no way" it could be answered "without going into the details of the specific event".

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Cllr Lucas interrupted Ms Alajooz and said he had spoken "in line with the advice that you gave me" and that he had "deliberately and specifically avoided any mention of any specific event".

Mr Roche, who said his email had been sent on behalf of the chair of the SAG, told Cllr Lucas that he would be "happy" to discuss the specific event "but not at full council".

In a report, the council's interim legal manager said that Cllr Lucas had "interrupted and challenged the monitoring officer during the provision of statutory advice" at the meeting.

They added that Cllr Lucas had "referred to and quoted from the content of [an] internal officer email". Before the meeting, Cllr Lucas had been advised that he could not ask a planned question that referred to "an internal email" about the SAG as it would require "disclosure of confidential or exempt information".

A complaint was made about Cllr Lucas's behaviour and referred to an outside deputy monitoring officer. They concluded that the complaint should be dealt with informally, and Cllr Lucas was asked on February 10 to apologise to the council's chief executive officer, monitoring officer and democratic services officer.

The cancelled standards committee meeting would have considered whether Cllr Lucas breached parts of the council's code of conduct that require councillors to "treat others with respect", to avoid bullying or intimidation of others, and to avoid "conducting oneself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing the office of councillor into disrepute". 

Cllr Lucas, who is also a county councillor for Hitchin South division, did not respond to a request for comment