Making complaints after 8 May

From 8 May 2008, if you wish to complain that a member has breached the Code of Conduct, you must address your complaint to the standards committee at your local authority. Complaints received by the Standards Board from 8 May 2008 will be returned with instructions to forward them to the standards committee.

For more information about the new arrangements:

visit the local assessment section of our website
email us at enquiries@standardsboard.gov.uk
call us on 0845 078 8181

What we will investigate

When we receive a complaint about something we are allowed to consider, we decide if it is appropriate for us to investigate. We focus only on allegations that we believe have the potential to damage the public's confidence in local democracy. You will be notified of our decision in writing.

This page contains the following sections:

Which complaints will we refer for investigation?

We decide that a matter should be investigated when we believe it meets one of the following criteria:

it is serious enough, if proven, to justify the range of sanctions available to the Adjudication Panel for England or local standards committees
it is part of a continuing pattern of less serious misconduct that is unreasonably disrupting the business of the authority and there is no other avenue left to deal with it, short of investigation
in considering this, we will take into account the time that has passed since the alleged conduct occurred

Which complaints are we unlikely to refer for investigation?

We are unlikely to decide that a complaint should be investigated if it falls into any of the following categories:

we believe it to be malicious, relatively minor, or tit-for-tat
the same, or substantially similar, complaint has already been the subject of an investigation or inquiry and there is nothing further to be gained by seeking the sanctions available to the Adjudication Panel or the local standards committee
the complaint concerns acts carried out in the member’s private life, when they are not carrying out the work of the authority or have not misused their position as a member
it appears that the complaint is really about dissatisfaction with a council decision
there is not enough information currently available to justify a decision to refer the matter for investigation
except in the most serious of cases, conduct that would not be considered to be a breach of the revised Code of Conduct, which authorities were able to adopt from May 2007 and became mandatory in October 2007

Who deals with the review process?

It is also part of our function to deal with the review process.You are entitled to request a review of a decision not to refer a complaint for investigation. You should make this request, within 30 days of the referral decision, by writing to our chief executive at the Standards Board for England. You will then be notified of the resulting decision in writing. We also write to the member(s) that were complained about, the monitoring officer and the clerk (where applicable).

Complaints and Investigations

Making complaints after 8 May