Issue - meetings

Verbal update by the Head of Legal and Democratic Services and Monitoring Officer.

The Monitoring Officer gave a verbal update to the Committee on the number and type of Councillor Complaints.

The Monitoring Officer appraised Members of the current figures:

• 61 complaints had been received from June 2024 – June 2025;
• In terms of the types of complainants:  30 were from Elected or co-opted Members, 23 from members of the public, 5 from Officers/staff and 3 were others;
• 14 of the 61 complaints were ruled as invalid;
• 17 complaints found no breach of the Code of Conduct was found;
• 8 complaints were informally resolved; and
• 22 complaints were ongoing at various stages in the process.

Of the complaints ongoing, 6 are currently being investigated and further 3 are awaiting instruction of an investigation following consultation with an independent person.

The Monitoring Officer highlighted his intention to publish these figures to improve the transparency around the process and amount of resources assigned that related to councillor complaints. He estimated that the Council had spent c. £500,000 on councillor complaints in recent years.

The Committee and Officers discussed the requirement to engage in the Code of Conduct and the powers of the Council relating to sanctions within the Code and legislation.

The Chair proposed an informal working group of the Committee to discuss the issues raised in the meeting. The Deputy Monitoring Officers agreed to support this work to help the Committee and report back at the next meeting.

Councillor Charles Nuttall proposed and Councillor David Palethorpe seconded and it was

Resolved

That an informal working group is set up to review options of publishing complaints data in order to inform a decision by the Committee at a future meeting.