City council receives more than 25 complaints about councillors’ behaviour

SHEFFIELD COUNCIL received 22 complaints about councillors’ behaviour last year – with a further seven this year.

A special committee meets to discuss complaints about councillors breaking the code of conduct and has published the results for 2019 and from January to March this year.

Among those where it was decided there be no action due to no breach, there was 14 in 2019 and four so far in 2020.

Of withdrawn or invalid complaints, there was one last year and another this year.

In five cases in 2019, there was an “informal resolution”, which has occurred once in 2020.

There was just one case, in 2019, where a complaint was referred to committee with an investigation.

Of those referred to committee without an investigation, there was one in 2019 and another so far this year.

Last September, an ethical standards workshop looked at whether the authority was meeting 15 government guidelines with its code of conduct.

One of its main findings was that the council should be tougher on bullying and harassment, with a list of examples.

It also found Sheffield’s current code was not detailed enough. It said the council should stop trivial or malicious allegations by councillors and publish a clear and straightforward public interest test against which allegations are filtered. Where there is a decision on an allegation of misconduct following a formal investigation, a notice should be published as soon as possible on the council website, including a statement of facts, the reason behind the decision and any sanction applied.

The code of conduct should be readily accessible to both councillors and the public, in a prominent position on the council’s website with hard copies available in council premises.

Officers should also be able to address any conflicts of interest when undertaking an investigation, possibly by asking the Monitoring Officer from Barnsley Council to oversee it.

It also said the council should update its gifts and hospitality register at least once per quarter and it was felt the £50 limit was too high and should be amended to £10,