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Local investigations and other action

From May 2008, it is up to standards committees of local authorities to refer complaints to a monitoring officer that a member has breached the Code of Conduct. The following set of guidance, published in June 2008, assists local authorities with conducting investigations under the new framework. It consists of an overview of local investigations and other action, and a guide to conducting an investigation which is accompanied by a toolkit of useful documents.

Toolkit

• Conducting an investigation toolkit

 

The guides below were written prior to May 2008 for use by local authorities, standards committees and monitoring officers on investigating complaints, and may be useful for investigations that commenced under the old framework:

Standards Board investigations

Being involved in an investigation may be a worrying experience. This guide is intended to provide information about the investigations process, and aims to answer the questions that those who become involved may wish to ask.

Investigating allegations of misconduct is one of the ways in which we at the Standards Board for England work to build confidence in local democracy. Over 100,000 people give their time as members. The majority do so with the very best motives and conduct themselves in a way that is beyond reproach. Public perception, however, tends to focus on the minority, who in some way abuse their positions or behave badly.

Anyone who considers that a member may have breached the Code of Conduct can make an allegation to their local authority. If the allegation is about a member of a parish council, the complaint should be sent to the principle authority which will either be a district council, metropolitan borough or unitary authority.  Each allegation will be assessed by the local authority’s standards committee who will decide if it falls within their remit and should be investigated or whether other action should be taken.  If it does, they will decide whether the matter should be investigated locally by the monitoring officer  or whether they should ask the Standards Board for England to investigate the matter.

All of our investigations are carried out in accordance with a defined set of values - a pdf version of which is available to download.

• Investigations guidelines.

The information is divided into the following sections:

• Leading up to our investigation
• During our investigation
• At the end of our investigation
• Local investigations
• General topics

 

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