Local investigations
The information on this page is divided into the following sections:
- What is a monitoring officer?
- Who conducts a local investigation?
- Can a monitoring officer refer a case back to the Standards Board?
- What is the outcome of a local investigation?
- What is a direction/other action?
What is a monitoring officer?
The monitoring officer is normally the senior legal officer appointed to the role by the council. All authorities are required by law to have a monitoring officer. They are nearly always based in the authority’s legal department. The monitoring officer has a statutory duty to investigate allegations referred to them by their standards committee. In the case of parish councils, the monitoring officer of either a district, metropolitan or unitary council will be responsible for carrying out investigations that a parish councilor may have breached the Code.
Who conducts a local investigation?
The investigation may be conducted by the monitoring officer, another officer within the authority, or a third party contracted by the monitoring officer.
Can a monitoring officer refer the case back to the Standards Board?
During the course of the investigation, a monitoring officer may ask the ethical standards officer to take over the investigation. Depending upon the circumstances of the case, the ethical standards officer may consider it appropriate to accept the matter and continue the investigation. Circumstances where it may be appropriate for the ethical standards officer to take on the case include, but are not limited to:
- where investigation shows that the matter is more serious than it first appeared
- the member is obstructing or refusing to co-operate with the investigation
How will the investigation be carried out?
In all likelihood an investigation conducted by the monitoring officer, or his appointed delegate, will not differ procedurally from that carried out by an ethical standards officer. There is no set procedure for carrying out an investigation and while we believe the processes we follow represent best practice, there may be minor variations between different authorities.
All will however adhere to the legal requirement to give the subject member an opportunity to comment on the allegation, and where relevant, the evidence against them. Please note that this legal right does not extend to the person who made the complaint. While in most investigations the complainant will be sent a copy of the draft report, there is no legal requirement that they be involved in the investigation. However, the complainant should be informed of the outcome of the investigation.
What is the outcome of a local investigation?
At the end of a local investigation, a report is prepared by the person conducting the investigation.
The monitoring officer must provide a copy of the report to the standards committee for consideration.
If the report concludes that there has not been a breach of the Code of Conduct and the standards committee agrees, a notice will be published stating that there has been no failure to comply with the Code. The member can ask the committee not to publish this notice. If the standards committee disagrees that there has been no failure to comply with the Code, it must hold a hearing to consider the matter in full.
If the report concludes that there has been a failure to comply with the Code, the standards committee must hold a hearing to determine the matter. If it concludes that the Code was breached, it can impose a range of sanctions on the member including suspension for up to six months.
At any point prior to completion of the hearing, the standards committee may ask the ethical standards officer to take the matter back for investigation if it appears that the sanctions available to the standards committee are not serious enough.
What is a direction/other action?
In certain circumstances, a monitoring officer or ethical standards officer may decide that some form of action other than an investigation is appropriate. This is most likely to happen when the monitoring officer or the ethical standards officer considers that a case has relevance for the ethical governance of an authority, and that the issues involved will not be resolved by making a finding against an individual member.
The monitoring officer or ethical standards officer may decide to take other action, rather than carry out an investigation. For example, the monitoring officer could make recommendations to the standards committee about wider issues for the authority, or direct the committee to arrange some form of mediation between parties.
back to Standards Board investigations
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