The City of York Council is set to adopt an action plan after a report said there was ‘something seriously wrong’ with it.
The Local Government Association (LGA) said it doubted whether deep-seated issues at the council had been resolved following a public interest report (PIR) in 2021.
The PIR followed an ‘arguably unlawful’ payment made to the authority's former chief executive.
Cllr Katie Lomas said she wanted the action plan agreed before May.
Cllr Lomas, who chaired a meeting of the authority's audit and governance committee, said the three-year plan should be confirmed by the spring so that it did not get forgotten about or diluted.
The LGA said there were still ‘pockets’ of councillors still not following the code of conduct and the council should be ‘worried’ by its report.
Labour's Bob Webb called the report ‘damning’, while Liberal Democrat councillors said culture issues at the council dated back decades.
The LGA urged the council to take the opportunity of the May local elections, in which every councillor in York is up for election, to ‘start afresh’.
In a statement issued after the meeting, deputy leader of the Lib Dem group Cllr Anne Hook said the LGA report concluded it was ‘satisfied with the action and implementation plan to address the recommendations in the PIR report’.
