Issue - meetings

The Chairman of the Standards Committee, Councillor Stowe, presented the Review of Councillor Complaints Handling Procedure. He said the procedure was last reviewed in 2011 and there were many things in it that need to be updated. He said that there was the addition of a local resolution stage to try and encourage town and parish councils to resolve complaints before submitting to the Monitoring Officer.

Councillor Stowe proposed that the recommendations in the report be supported. Councillor Crofton seconded the proposal.

Councillor Goldspink said that the Liberal Democrat group were very happy to support the recommendations. She referred to Appendix A and the comments from the Standards Committee about a councillor acting ‘in capacity’. She said she hoped that theis would not be used as an excuse for poor behaviour.

Councillor Haysey said that it was important given the debate at the last Council meeting that all councillors should behave appropriately. She suggested that town and parish councils approached the Association of Herts Town and Parish Councils to provide training for councillors on the Code of Conduct.

Councillor Curtis said he was a member of the Executive at the Association of Herts Town and Parish Councils and said he was happy to feedback to them about engaging councils in training.

The motion to support the recommendations having been proposed and seconded was put to the meeting and upon a vote being taken, was declared CARRIED.

RESOLVED – That (A) the comments from the Standards Committee and the Independent Person, as shown at Appendix A be considered, and the recommended actions shown be endorsed; and

(B) the revised Councillor Complaints Handling Procedure, as amended by recommendation (a), contained at Appendix B be adopted.

The Head of Legal and Democratic Services introduced the Review of Councillor Complaints Handling Procedure. He said that the last procedure had been adopted in September 2011 and the complaints procedure needed to be updated following the new Code of Conduct being adopted in April 2021.

The Head of Legal and Democratic Services referred to paragraph 2.3 of the report which listed the notable changes to the procedure. He said that one important change was the inclusion of local resolution whereby complaints should try to be resolved at a local level before referring to the Monitoring Officer. He said that he hoped this would result in a quicker resolution for the complainant. A further amendment was the inclusion of clearer definitions of each stage of the complaints process to set out clearly what would happen when.

The Head of Legal and Democratic Services said a clearer explanation of the role of the Independent Person had been included instead of the document referring to the Localism Act.

The Independent Person said that the procedure was a vast improvement on the current version. He said that the whole point was to make clear that the complaints procedure was not a mechanism for people to complain about decisions that had been made lawfully by councillors. He said that the sequencing that had been set out for each stage of the process was easy to follow.

Parish Councillor Hunt asked if all complaints fell under Code of Conduct complaints.

The Head of Legal and Democratic Services said there was often some confusion as to what constituted a Code of Conduct complaint. He said he had received complaints about council decisions or that councillors were not responding to correspondence, but these did not fall under the Code of Conduct.

Parish Councillor Hunt said that parish councils were at the front line of complaints and said that Much Hadham had its own complaints procedure. He asked if parish councils would be informed of that addition of the local resolution stage as they may need to change their own individual policies.

The Head of Legal and Democratic Services said that his role as the Monitoring Officer meant he was responsible for investigating complaints under the Localism Act. He said that the new local resolution stage was intended for a conversation to take place to try and resolve simple misunderstandings. He said he would send the new procedure across to all parish clerks to make them aware that the procedure would encourage complainants to resolve at a local level before being considered by the Monitoring Officer, where required.

The Independent Person said that one area that caused misunderstanding was councillors behaving in ways members of the public don’t expect them to behave. He said that the legislation was very careful and specific and said that a councillor needed to be acting ‘in capacity’. He said it was an important distinction to make as to whether a councillor was acting as a councillor or doing something not connected to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 285