What happens to your complaint?
What will happen to your complaint?
Once you have made a complaint, you will be told in writing what will happen to it. If the authority decides that the standards committee will deal with your complaint, it will set up a meeting of no less than three members of the committee to decide what should happen next.
The meeting will be chaired by one of the independent people on the standards committee. This should happen within 20 days.
The committee can decide to:
- Investigate your complaint.
- Take some other action.
- Send it to the Standards Board for England to investigate.
- Send it to the standards committee of another authority if the member belongs to that authority, or one of the parish or town councils that come under it.
- Take no further action.
What is “other action”?
“Other action” is usually some form of conflict resolution, mediation or training. This decision is reached where the standards committee decides that it is likely to resolve the situation more effectively than an investigation and possible sanction.
What if the standards committee decides to take no further action and you don’t agree?
The law says that the standards committee should take reasonable steps to tell you the reason for its decision. You may not agree with the reasons, or think that it did not make the decision properly, or you may have new information that you think might affect its decision. If so, you can ask the committee to review its decision. You have to ask it to do this in writing within 30 calendar days of receiving its decision.
The standards committee must consider your request within three months. The decision will be reviewed by at least three members of the standards committee. None of the people who made the original decision are allowed to take part in the review. This meeting will be chaired by one of the independent people on the standards committee. They can uphold the original decision or overturn it, and will tell you in writing what they have decided.
What is the Standards Board for England’s role?
The Standards Board provides the national,independent oversight that is needed for there to be confidence in this locally based system.
We:
- Require councils and other authorities to tell us how well they are dealing with complaints about the conduct of their members.
- Work with standards committees to help them improve if they do not deal with complaints about their members properly.
- Give standards committees and councillors guidance on understanding the Code of Conduct and how to deal with complaints about the conduct of members of their council or authority.
- Can take away the power of the standards committee to receive complaints about their members if we believe it necessary.
- Investigate the most serious cases where the local standards committee believes it is not best placed to deal with the matter and we agree with them.
- Publish information about how councils and other authorities are dealing with complaints about their members.
Further information
If you are still unsure about what to do with your complaint, please call our enquiries line on 0845 078 8181 or email us at enquiries@standardsboard.gov.uk
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- Making a complaint (57 kb)
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