Agenda item

(Monitoring Officer) To  consider a report.

The Committee considered a report reviewing the Council’s Complaints/Local Assessment Process in the light of experience gained since its introduction.

(a)        Officer Roles/Mediation or Conciliation

In relation to officer roles a member suggested that more emphasis should be placed on advising complainants of other avenues available to resolve an issue bearing in mind the resources required to follow the formal complaints process.  The Local Assessments Manager advised that when preliminary discussions were held with a potential complainant all the avenues were explained.  However, some complaints only became known on the receipt of a completed form at which stage it was not possible to suggest alternative action.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer drew attention to a report to be made to the Local Councils’ Liaison Committee drawing attention to conclusions in the Standards Committee’s Annual Report in relation to the number of complaints about Parish/Town Councillors, the vast majority of which had been made by one councillor against another.

The Committee agreed that complaints against councillors by other councillors could be a symptom of other problems and that the challenge was to find the correct way of resolving difficulties within Parish and Town Councils.  It was suggested that the Essex and National Associations of Local Councils could intervene with training or conciliation.

(c)        Initial Assessments

The Committee considered a number of concerns raised by one of their members about the assessment process.  The member had questioned the policy to be adopted when a councillor who had been notified that they were the subject of a complaint approached a member of the Standards Committee for advice.  Also the practice adopted in a Parish Council of publicly announcing that a complaint had been made.

The officers advised that it was a requirement that Standards Committee members should not advise councillors outside of the formal process as they might have to assess the complaint.  Members were advised that Parish/Town Council Clerks were notified when a Parish/Town councillor was subject to a complaint but that this notification was not for public disclosure for fear of prejudicing the assessment of the complaint.  The Committee discussed the timescale for notifying a parish or town council clerk and the subject member of a complaint.  The Monitoring Officer agreed to strengthen the Procedure Notes with a view to ensuring that there was no public disclosure of complaints during the assessment/review processes.

The Committee also discussed the initial notification of a complaint to the subject member and the fact that no detail was given of the complaint, this being disclosed only when an investigation had been commissioned.

The Monitoring Officer explained that details of a complaint were not disclosed at the assessment/review stages because there was a need to maintain confidentiality so that an investigation, if required, was not compromised.

(d)       Assessment/Review Hearings

The Committee was advised that one subject member had complained that they had been denied access to Assessment and Review Sub-Committee hearings and that this was against natural justice in that they had not been able to reply to the allegation.

The Monitoring Officer pointed out that Standards Board advice indicated that Assessment and Review hearings should be held in private.  The reason was that these stages in the process were designed to assess a complaint at face value and whether there was a potential breach of the Code, not to carry out an investigation.  Furthermore it should be borne in mind that potentially unfounded and damaging allegations would be considered and should not be disclosed unless properly investigated for adjudication purposes.

(e)       Complaint Investigations – Office Holders

The Committee was advised that Standards Board advice allowed a complaint to be referred if it was considered local investigation would not be effective because of the position held by a subject member, e.g. Leader, Cabinet Member, Standards Committee Member.  The Monitoring Officer suggested that advice to complainants on this aspect needed to be reinforced and that the policy should be one of considering each case on its merits with the arguments for referral to the Standards Board being set out on the agenda for Assessment Sub-Committee meetings.

(f)        Grounds for Referral for Investigation

The Committee agreed with the suggestion that, in advice to complainants and to the Assessment Sub-Committee, complaints should be based on no more than one alleged breach of the Code wherever possible.

(g)       Standard Letters

The Committee noted that action would be taken to strengthen the standard letters of the Standards Board in relation to the invitation to comment on draft investigation reports.  In future strict timescales would be imposed and once the specified period had elapsed, a report would be finalised.

            RESOLVED:

            That the suggestions contained in the report and the views of the Committee expressed at this meeting be incorporated into revised Procedure Notes for Officers.