Dozens of complaints made against councillors
Eight cases of misconduct are still being investigating including that of councillor Peter Willows
The Standards Board for England has dealt with 158 suspected breaches of the Code of Conduct by Sussex borough, district and county councillors in the last two years, new figures have revealed.
Over the last two years three district councillors were suspended from duty for breaches of the councillors' Code of Conduct. One parish councillor was suspended while another case is to be decided by a tribunal.
The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act and published on the Standards Board for England website, reveal councillors have been referred for investigation for offences ranging from treating council officers and fellow elected councillors with a "lack of respect" to bringing their office or the council into disrepute.
Eight cases of misconduct are still being investigated including that of Brighton and Hove City councillor Peter Willows.
Coun Willows was referred to the Standards Board for remarks he made at a party comparing homosexuals to paedophiles.
On December 12 2006, the 75-year-old Hangleton and Knoll councillor stood trial at Brighton Magistrates' Court and was found guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
Every councillor has to conform to a councillors' code of conduct agreed by their authority and based on a provisional set of rules laid down by local government law.
If a member suspects a fellow councillor to have breached the code, he or she has a duty to report them. Members of the public can also report councillors to the Standards Board if they think they have acted with misconduct.
Complaints to the Standards Board for England are dealt with in a three stage process.
Celia Cook, a communications adviser from the Standards Board, said: "We are responsible for championing and promoting high ethical standards in members' conduct and as we move into a strategic regulatory role, we will offer more guidance, support and training to local authorities and members, while maintaining a general overview of the framework to ensure that there is a robust and proportionate system in place in which the public can have confidence.
"We assess allegations of member misconduct and decide whether the allegations should be investigated or not. If an allegation warrants an investigation then wherever possible we refer these to local authorities for local investigation.
"When we receive a complaint we carry out an initial assessment to decide if the matter should be investigated.
"To decide this we take the following into consideration: Is the complaint serious enough, if proven, to justify the range of sanctions available to the Adjudication Panel for England or local standards committees?
"Is it part of a continuing pattern of less serious misconduct that is unreasonably disrupting the business of the authority? And whether there is no other avenue left to deal with it.
"We also take into account the time that has passed since the alleged conduct occurred before making a decision."
Once a complaint is deemed serious enough for investigation then an officer from the Standards Board will either refer it to the local authority for investigation or investigate it himself.
From there they can either find a councillor not in breach of the code, decide no further action should be taken or refer it to the Adjudication Panel for England for a decision.
If the latter happens, a councillor will have to appear before a hearing and then find out if they have been suspended for a breach.
If a local authority is carrying out an investigation the findings will be referred to its standards committee and a decision will be made whether to suspend a councillor.
In the case of the four Mid Sussex district councillors, the Standards Board have yet to decide whether or not an investigation is warranted.
Not all complaints received by the Standards Board are of a serious nature however.
In England last year there were 3,373 complaints looked at by the Standards Board. Between April 2006 and January 2007, 62 per cent of all complaints were made by members of the public with fellow councillors making up 31 per cent.
The vast majority of those complaints related to town and parish councillors with 42 per cent of complaints. Next was district council with 27 per cent, county councillors had three per cent of the complaints while unitary authority councillors, like Brighton and Hove City Council, had 13 per cent.
Over the same period 81 per cent of these complaints were not referred and 19 per cent were, representing 641 councillors.
No further action was taken with 59 per cent with only two per cent being referred to the adjudication panel.
Four per cent were referred back to the local authority to deal with while there was no evidence of a breach in 35 per cent of cases.
With 13 councillors across England suspended from 3,373 complaints, is the complaints system a waste of time?
Miss Cook said the Standards Board would not consider investigating a councillor if they believed the complaint was malicious, relatively minor, or "tit-for-tat".
No investigation will take place either if the complaint is about dissatisfaction with a council decision or if there is not enough information.
She said: "In response to criticisms that 19 per cent of allegations are referred for investigation, it is important to remember that the vast majority of members act in the best interests of their communities and conduct themselves in a way that is beyond reproach.
"Public perception, however, tends to focus on the minority, who in some way abuse their positions or behave badly. Therefore it is important that there is a system in place which can call the minority of these members to account."
Source: The Argus (19/02/2007)
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