Misconduct complaint was ‘bizarre’
A CONSERVATIVE councillor has criticised the Labour Party after being subject of a ‘‘bizarre and frivolous’’ complaint.
A unnamed Labour councillor made an official complaint over the behaviour of Cllr Sam Currie at a council meeting in October 2017, in which he criticised another councillor before repeating his comments in a subsequent press release.
Cllr Currie, who ran as Parliamentary candidate in West Lancashire in last year’s general election, had questioned if another councillor had stepped down from a committee role due to living too far away, and whether doing so was fair to those living in her ward.
In an official complaint, the Aughton and Downholland councillor was accused of failing to treat a colleague with respect, failing to treat the mayor with respect by not stopping speaking when asked, and also of bringing his office or the council into disrepute.
After being cleared of any misconduct by a West Lancashire Council solicitor, Cllr Currie hit out at Labour for wasting the council’s time and money on the complaint, which involved an independent adjudicator overseeing the process.
He said he only learned of the complaint after receiving a letter saying he had been cleared of any breach of the code of conduct.
He said: “How can this be conducive to local government when on the one hand they’re complaining about the Government cutting back on local government resources and on the other they’re frivolously wasting money on spurious complaints?
“I think there should be complete transparency and to not be able to ask questions is not transparent.’’
Labour leader Cllr Ian Moran said the complaint was made by an individual councillor and that he had no problem with that.
He also pointed to previous complaints made by Conservative councillors which resulted in no misconduct being found.
He said: “Councillors are entitled to put complaints in. If you look at the past record, most of the complaints have been from Conservatives, so I think he needs to refresh his memory. He is entitled to jump up and down but I’m happy with our stance.’’
He added: “Maybe instead of speaking to the Advertiser, he should write to Theresa May about the huge funding cuts from central Government.”
In his comments informing Cllr Currie of the decision, the borough’s solicior said a degree of “robustness” was expected of those holding office, and nothing alleged to have been said would have constituted a breach of the code of conduct.
Ultimately, he said, the threshold required for a breach of the code was “much higher” than alleged.