Agenda item
Code of Conduct for Members - Complaint Monitoring
- Meeting of Standards Advisory Committee, Thursday, 21st June, 2018 6.00 p.m. (Item 6.1)
- View the background to item 6.1
Minutes:
The Legal Adviser and Deputy Monitoring Officer introduced the report which updated SAC on complaints and investigations relating to alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct for Members. The Committee heard:
- That a full record of complaints since January 2017 had been presented to appraise members of the status of reports that were currently under investigation and those that had been concluded.
- Three complaints were currently under investigation –
Complaint 005/2017 – following investigation, local resolution was recommended. The proposed remedy was initiated.However both members that were the subject of the complaint were not returned at the local election (May 2018), neither have these parties pursued resolution. The situation was considered by the Independent Person and the Monitoring Officer, and in view of the circumstances, it was deemed that pursuing the resolution would not present effective use of public money since there was likely to be no conclusive outcome. Accordingly it was determined that the matter should not be taken further and the complainant be informed in writing following consideration of the matter by SAC.
Complaint 008/2017 - local resolution was recommended after investigation; however since the subject of the complaint was not returned at election (May 2018) and for the same reasons as above it was recommended also that the matter be not pursued. The decision and reasons will be taken up with the complainant and a report back made to SAC in due course.
Complaint 004/2018 - concerned the conduct of two Members during the election campaign. The Independent Person has been consulted on the matter and, since the matter is also the subject of a Police investigation, it was deemed that the authority’s investigation should be paused until Police investigations have been concluded. A further report will be made to SAC in due course.
Responding to Members’ questions the Committee was informed that:
- There was effective monitoring of complaints, although some were resolved through informal action (for example by raising the matter with the Group Leader or party whip) which may not be recorded as a formal complaint raised using the electronic compliant form.
- There was no distinction between complaints made regarding backbench councillors or senior councillors.All were monitored in the same way. However complaints concerning the Executive Mayor were dealt with separately, but subject to the same processes and procedures.
- The public are able to access information on how to make complaints related to Member conduct in the following ways:
via the Council's website; via Google internet search; and via the Council's corporate complaints procedure. Additionally complaints could be made in person via councillor surgeries. Officers had observed that, generally, complaints had been made by members of the public who were well informed.Therefore it was felt that there was no barrier to access.
- Data related to complaints was retained for one year. In regards to fulfilling its obligations under GDPR, including whether or not SAC had a right to know about the complaint history of an elected member, SAC was informed that this would be checked and confirmed.
SAC noted the scope of breaches reported and in discussion:
- Requested data on the comparative performance of Tower Hamlets in relation to other boroughs around the types of complaints and the solutions applied. Officers agreed to research and report back to SAC at a future meeting.
- Welcomed the data provided in the spreadsheet and requested that summary information in the form of a dashboard also be provided, summarising the numbers of cases open, those closed and recent activity.
- Requested that an item be added to the SAC Forward Plan for Members to discuss the process for investigating complaints. Additionally, for learning, the Committee was advised that a mock investigation would be included.
RESOLVED
That the content of the report and the discussion of the information contained in Appendix 1 be noted.
ACTION BY:M Norman, Legal Adviser and Deputy Monitoring Officer
B McKenzie, Head of Member Support
A Burgio, Democratic Services Officer
Supporting documents:
- Code of Conduct for Members - Complaint Monitoring, item 6.1 PDF 75 KB
- Appendix 1 for Code of Conduct for Members - Complaint Monitoring, item 6.1 PDF 82 KB