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Complaints against Councillors

Responsibility for considering complaints about an elected Member (i.e. Councillor) now rests with West Lindsey District Council’s Standards Committee.

If you think a member has broken their authority’s Code of Conduct, you can now report them to the District Council.  You should complete the attached complaint form and submit it to the Council’s Monitoring Officer or you can complete the online form at the bottom of this page.

You will need to supply full details of your complaint and a complaint form (attached to this page) is available for this purpose.  Guidance notes are also available.

The Standards Committee can only deal with complaints about the behaviour of a Member. It will not deal with complaints about things that are not covered by the Members’ Code of Conduct. If you make a complaint to the Standards Committee it must be about why you think a Member has not followed the Code of Conduct.

The behaviour covered by the Code of Conduct is:

• unlawfully discriminating against someone
• failing to treat people with respect
• bullying any person
• intimidating any person involved in any investigation or proceedings about someone’s misconduct
• 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, where the conduct is linked to their public role and not in their private capacity
• using their position improperly, to their own or someone else’s advantage or disadvantage
• misusing their authority’s resources
• allowing their 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 the discussion or making a decision where they have an interest that is so significant that it is likely to affect their judgement (known as a ‘prejudicial interest’)
• improperly influencing a decision about a matter that they have a prejudicial interest in
• failing to register any gifts of or hospitality (including its source), that they have received in their role as a Councillor worth over £25.

Further information can be obtained from the attachments  and from The Standards Board for England website which can be accessed via the link.