To enable the committee to be assured that high standards of conduct continue to be promoted and maintained. To provide an overview of how the arrangements for dealing with complaints are working together.

The Head of Legal Services (HLS) introduced the report, which he split into two parts. The following principal points were noted.

Code of Conduct

• 4 complaints had been received about Herefordshire Council councillors which was a marked decrease from previous years.
• No complaints had been received from Herefordshire members about another member.
• 29 complaints had been received for Parish and Town Councils which was a reduction of 25%,
• Appendix 1 was highlighted. Over the past 6 years, 85 Parish and Town Councils had received no complaints and only 9 had generated more than 5 complaints. Although it may seem numbers were high, it should be taken into account the number of Parish and Town Councils there were.  Acknowledgement was given to Bartestree with Lugwardine Parish Council who had received no complaints in the last administrative year, having historically received high numbers.
• In relation to Key Performance Indicators, from the receipt of a complaint to the issuing of the initial assessment had reduced from 31 days to 26 since Q4.
• Response times from Independent Persons (IP) remained exceptional at 1 day.
• There had been two cases of a complaint that had reached a standards panel one had taken 39 calendar days, and the other 53 from Initial Assessment to Outcome, the variation showed that it was very much dependent upon the circumstances, availability of witnesses etc. The councillors in both hearings were found by the standards panel to be in breach of the code of conduct making recommendations to the Parish council and to the councillor to remedy the breach, unfortunately, neither councillor had complied, and both had indicated that they would not comply with the recommendations calling in to question again the adequacy of sanctions.
• A standards panel having not convened for 7 years had to adopt a new process and train new panel members. It was thought that the process went as well as expected and following lessons learnt, a meeting had been set up with the current panel members to see where the process could be improved. 
• 40% of all complainants during the 2024/25 period were generated by Parish/Town Councillors against other councillors. This was disappointing because the majority could and should have been dealt with between the members themselves and caused unnecessary work and time of the service.
• 60% of all complaints had respect or a lack of respect featuring as part of the complaint.
• Although an extremely low number of Parish/Town councils had signed up to the NALC/SLCC civility and respect pledge (7) previously, it was reported that 5 additional councils had signed up since January.
• The IP expressed their satisfaction with how the process was working and offered her compliments to the HLS and his team.

Following committee discussion it was noted.

1. Feedback is received, noted and acknowledged from dissatisfied complainants and dissatisfied subject members about complaints, however there is no right of appeal unless they feel the Council has failed to follow process and can appeal to the Local Government Ombudsman.
2. The IP explained in her personal experience with cases she had not differed significantly in opinion from officers and that if feedback was being received it would be interesting for that to be shared with the IP’s.
3. With regards to Councillors Bradford and Sinclair not complying with the recommendations of the standards panel it was confirmed that there was no further action that could be taken. Change in legislation on sanctions was expected from Government over the next 12 months.
4. The cases of Councillor Bradford and Sinclair were not the norm; the HLS never having experienced a member not accepting the findings of a standard panel before and highlighted that most similar cases were dealt with at the initial investigation stage with most Councillors offering to or already having apologised meaning the complaint ended there and then.

Informal Resolution Process

• It was proposed that a threshold be considered that must happen before a complaint is received by Herefordshire Council and dealt with under the Code of Conduct Process.
• A proposed draft could be found at Appendix 2a and Appendix 2b
• The proposal had come after two years’ worth of data highlighting a trend of majority of complaints being around a lack of respect and categorised as minor, meaning that most complaints are resolved at the initial assessment and not the types of complaints that should be coming to the monitoring officer to deal with under the Code of Conduct. Most of these are generated by parish/town councillors.
• The Standards Panel had also voiced a similar view from a recent case they had seen and felt it could have been dealt with better at an early stage informally.
• This was just a concept and pending agreement from the Committee to continue, the Monitoring Officer in consultation with the Chair would bring a proposal back to this committee as soon as possible.

Following committee discussion it was noted.

1. There would be no data collected on the number of complaints received using this informal process as it was envisaged that there would be resolution by the Parish and Town Council and no need for the Councils’ involvement.
2. It was clarified that an informal resolution did not result in anybody being found in breach of the code or not in breach of the code. The infraction would be resolved informally and hopefully with the outcome being a better relationship going on in future, which was thought could work for both members of the public and councillors.
3. It was noted that it should be an informal resolution procedure, which could be optional for the complainant.
4. It was queried whether the protocol would be effective and the amount of officer time spent pulling the process together be worth it.

RESOLVED

The committee proposes further development to the Informal Resolution Protocol (IRP) and delegates to the Monitoring Officer (in consultation with the Chair of Committee) to bring a preferred option proposal back to the committee.