The Audit and Standards Committee on Tuesday February 4th will received a report on complains against councillors during 2024.
The report gives a commentary on trends in complaints:
During consideration of the previous complaints review report last year, the committee asked that future monitoring reports provide an outline of any trends being identified in terms of complaints and outcomes.
The Committee will be aware that the Code only permits the investigation of complaints against Members made in their “official capacity or when giving the impression [they] are acting as a member of the Council”, unless it relates to a serious criminal offence being committed in the Member's private capacity.
Accordingly, any decision that purports to find a breach of the Code whilst the Member in question was acting in their private capacity, would be liable to challenge. The Committee will see from Appendix A that one of the main findings at Initial Assessment Stage in respect of the complaints over the past 12 months is that the Councillor “was not acting in their capacity as councillor.
This trend may reflect changing public expectations. Members of the committee will note that one element of the consultation referred to in this report [Open consultation Strengthening the standards and conduct framework for local authorities in England LINK] is the possibility of extending the Code to some categories of behaviour by members outside their role as a councillor.
The other main reason for complaints not proceeding beyond initial assessment stage is that the complaint "did not disclose sufficiently serious potential breaches of the Code to merit further consideration”.
The main rationale for this finding has been that insufficient evidence has been submitted to support the allegations made and/or when considering the allegations in context, there was no significant evidence to suggest the Councillors had behaved in the manner complained off. Indeed, in some cases the evidence indicated aggressive or otherwise unreasonable behaviour by the complainant towards the councillor.
The Committee should note, the main recurring factor in relation to escalating complaints to the Assessment Criteria Stage have been based on the contents of the complaint and that there may be a serious issue to consider, with an opportunity for the councillor concerned to comment being necessary to establish if this is indeed the case.
The report is accompanied by a document listing the complaints and action taken.
9 comments:
Getting away with motoring offences after saying you are a Councillor? Is that OK? Or isn't that breaching the Member’s Code of Conduct in terms of respect, failing to maintain a high standard of conduct and conducting themselves in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing their office into disrepute.
The problem of Brent's Monitoring Officer (the Council's top lawyer) refusing to treat perfectly valid complaints, of breaches of the Brent Members' Code of Conduct by councillors, on the grounds that the councillor “was not acting in their capacity as councillor", is nothing new.
I had that happen with a complaint against the Council Leader in 2015, involving a number of actions by him, which together breached all seven of the Principles of Conduct in Public Life. Upholding those principles is a key requirement of the Members' Code of Conduct.
My complaint related to his role in the failure to dismiss the Council's HR Director for her gross misconduct in 2014, in sanctioning (although the Council did not admit the £157k payment until June 2016) a large "compensation" pay-off to the HR Director nine months later, and falsely misrepresenting the findings of an Employment Tribunal in a statement to Brent Council members in July 2015.
Although he was only in a position to commit those breaches because he was Leader of the Council, and one of the breaches involved him heckling me when I was speaking, at the invitation of the Chair, to a Scrutiny Committee meeting in April 2015, the then Monitoring Officer refused to accept that they were breaches of the Members' Code of Conduct.
The reason given was that the Council Leader was not acting in his capacity as a member of Brent Council, but in his capacity as an employer!
Some long-time WM readers may remember the case, but for anyone else interested, you might like to read this guest post from November 2015:
https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2015/11/standards-at-brent-council-open-letter.html
This is not open justice if we are not allowed to know who the complaints were about
Avoiding consequences for driving violations by claiming to be a Councillor is clearly unacceptable.
The Code is pointless as there is no process to force a Councillor to resign or to sack them.
Indeed!
The Members' Code of Conduct may seem pointless, but Councils are required to have one, by law.
Unfortunately, the law doesn't require that such Codes must be seen to work in practice!
It does appear to have worked in the case of the councillor who abused her position on an argument over parking, and was forced to apologise and step down from her role as Deputy Mayor (details were reported on Wembley Matters last year).
However, during the time that Cllr. Butt has been Leader, the working of the Code has been undermined. As a result, it is very difficult for any complaints to come before the Standards Committee, to be considered in public, and what sanctions that could be applied for misconduct voted on. (One result of that is that the virtually defunct Standards Committee is now part of Audit and Standards).
Because it is so difficult to make a Standards complaint, and get it properly considered, there are now fewer complaints, because it is often "not worth the effort".
You can probably guess which Leading member of the Council benefits most from that!
It is difficult, if not impossible, to reach a conclusion that diverges from the sentiments expressed in comments regarding a separate matter involving the former HR director at Brent Council, Cara Davani. She was justly found guilty of racially discriminating against a black employee and subsequently received a total compensation of £157,610 from Brent Council, which also spent £400 to initiate an appeal aimed at reversing the ruling. The statements made by a spokesperson for Brent Council appear hypocritical, reflect a sense of injustice, exhibit glaring double standards, and are challenging to take seriously when viewed in the context of the complaint against the council leader, Muhammad Butt, who evaded accountability for a breach of Brent’s Members’ Code of Conduct in 2015: “This has been a very unhappy episode which has caused hurt to our former employee Rosemarie Clarke, cost the council financially, and damaged our reputation. We are very sorry indeed.
“The settlement paid to the former director of Human Resources was made after taking external legal advice.
“We have learned lessons from this episode and are absolutely committed to ensuring that it never happens again.
“As a council, we are now focused on working diligently, alongside our partners and local communities, to address the challenges we face together as we strive to build a better Brent.”
Post a Comment