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How to Complain


The responsibility for considering complaints that an Isle of Wight Councillor or a Town/Parish Councillor may have breached the Code of Conduct is to be dealt with by the Ethical Standards Committee.


WHAT YOU CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT

You can complain about a member breaking any part of their authority’s Code of Conduct. This includes:
  • unlawfully discriminating against someone.
  • failing to treat people with respect.
  • Bullying.
  • doing something to prevent those who work for the authority from being unbiased.
  • revealing information that was given to them in confidence, or stopping someone getting information they are entitled to by law.
  • damaging the reputation of their office or authority.
  • using their position improperly, to their own or someone else’s advantage or disadvantage.
  • misusing the authority’s resources.
  • allowing the authority’s resources to be misused for the activities of a registered political party.
  • failing to register financial or other interests.
  • failing to reveal a personal interest at a meeting.
  • taking part in a meeting or making a decision where the member has an interest that is so significant that it is likely to affect his or her judgment.
  • failing to register any gifts or hospitality they have received in their role as a member, worth over £25 and failing to declare an interest if a matter affecting the giver of the gift is considered within the next 3 years.

If none of the above applies to your complaint, it is probably not something we can deal with.

To find out if another organisation can help you, contact your
local Citizens Advice Bureau, Law Centre or other advice centre.


WHO YOU CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT

You can complain about councillors, members and co-opted members of all of the authorities we cover. A co-opted member is a voting member of an authority or one of its committees, who was appointed to their position rather than being elected.

We can only consider complaints about individual councillors or members. We cannot consider complaints about the authority as a whole or about people employed by it.
HOW TO MAKE A COMPLAINT

You need to send your complaint, in writing, by filling in a complaint form provided. The form will help ensure that you are sending us all the information we need. You can either use the form or write a letter that covers all the points in the form. Please send any documents that support your complaint with your form or letter. If you cannot write your complaint in English, we can arrange to have it translated for you. If you have any questions or difficulties filling in this form, please contact Mrs J Martin, (01983) 823281


WHAT WE CANNOT INVESTIGATE

An Act of Parliament has set out the types of behaviour that we can investigate. There are some complaints that we cannot investigate, including:
  • complaints where a member is not named.
  • complaints that are not in writing.
  • incidents or actions that are not covered by the Code of Conduct.
  • incidents that are about a fault in the way the authority has or has not done something. This is known as maladministration and may be a matter for the Local Government Ombudsman.
  • complaints about people employed by local authorities.
  • incidents that happened before a member was elected.
  • incidents that happened either before the authority adopted its local Code of Conduct.
  • complaints about the way in which the authority conducts and records its meetings.


BEFORE YOU COMPLAIN

Before you send us your complaint, you should be aware that we are unlikely to be able to keep your identity confidential from the person about whom you are making the complaint. Details of the complaint will be given to the member about whom you have complained.

In addition, after a decision has been made regarding your complaint, a summary of the complaint and any actions arising from it will be sent to you and the elected member concerned in the form of a Decision Notice. The Decision Notice will be available to the press on request. It will include your name but no contact details.

If you have concerns about this and would like to discuss it with someone, please call Mr Chris Mathews, Deputy Monitoring Officer (01983) 823280 who will be pleased to help.”





WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR COMPLAINT?

When we receive your complaint, we will write to you acknowledging receipt of your complaint and advising you of the date when the Assessment Sub Committee will hear it. The Assessment Sub Committee will then assess your complaint against the Assessment Criteria. We may decide that it will not be investigated for one or more of a number of reasons. These reasons could include those listed in the section ‘What we cannot investigate’. In addition, we may decide not to investigate your complaint because it:
  • is not serious enough to justify the use of resources involved in an investigation.
  • has already been investigated and there is no significant new information.

If we decide not to refer your complaint for investigation, we will write to you explaining why.
If we decide to refer your complaint for investigation, we will write to you to let you know when the investigation has started and, when it is over, we will write to you to tell you the outcome.


THE INVESTIGATION

The matter will be dealt with by a local investigation, all those involved will be advised that this is the case.


AT THE END OF AN INVESTIGATION

At the end of an investigation, a number of sanctions are available to the local standards committee and they take action accordingly.


PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE CAN:
  • only consider complaints that are about individual councillors or members, not the authority as a whole or authority employees.
  • only investigate matters where you believe a member has breached their authority’s Code of Conduct

Please provide us with as much information as you can about your complaint to help us decide whether or not it should be investigated.

Please avoid sending us large amounts of background information that only indirectly relates to your complaint.

If your complaint is referred for investigation, you will have a further opportunity to provide the investigator with any information or documents that you consider to be relevant.




Link to : - Standards Board for England
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