A STANDARDS panel has been criticised after the twin brother of a Burnley Labour county councillor was appointed its independent chairman.

At tonight's full council meeting, Independent leader Coun Harry Brooks and his 10 group members will call for a new chairman to be appointed and say the three independent panel members will be resigning.

The panel was set up in May as part of the new political structures agreed for Burnley Council.

It trains and advises councillors on the code of conduct which all councillors have to agree to. It has 13 councillor members, six Labour, three Liberal Democrats, three Independants and one Tory.

Coun Brooks has written to Burnley Council's director of support services Susan Walsh saying although the appointment of former prison governor Mr Heyes may be within the letter of the recent legislation he, and his other Independent members on the standards panel, does not consider it to be "within the spirit".

But council leader Coun Stuart Caddy said: "Mr Heyes's appointment was a unanimous decision by the whole panel and has been ratified by the full council. I would not raise someone's integrity at a full council meeting."

Coun Brooks said: "The Government by legislation has said there has to be an independent chairman appointed to the standards panel.

"Only the independent chairman James Heyes is the twin brother of Irene Roberts, a Labour county councillor, a former Labour councillor for Burnley and the retired secretary of the town's Labour MP.

"It is a new concept of independence that I don't immediately recognise. We feel we would be taking part in a farce if this mistake is not corrected.

"The legislation actually says that the person appointed should not be a relative of a councillor or a close friend of any councillor.

"She is not a Burnley councillor so technically he is eligible, but we think it brings the standards committee into disrepute."

He said at interview Mr Heyes, who lives in Burnley, raised that he was a relative of someone at County Hall, but although he has known Mrs Roberts for 25 years, Coun Caddy said he did not know she had a twin brother and Mr Heyes had lived out of town for many years.

Mr Heyes, who last year was the prison governor in Channel 5's reality TV show Jailbreak, said he would not comment at this stage.