South Tyneside Council battles 'unusually high' backlog of complaints against councillors

As part of an update to South Tyneside Council’s Standards Committee earlier this month (July 1), it was revealed that complaints under the elected members’ code of conduct are still being received.

Since the committee’s last meeting in March, 2024, councillors were told nine new complaints had been submitted, and that a further four complaints had been closed.

This takes the overall number of complaints to 246 since recording started in January, 2020, a number described as “unusually high” by council legal chief John Rumney.

Of this number, around 132 complaints against councillors were from members of the public, and 102 were councillors complaining about other councillors, and at the time of the meeting, 208 of the 246 complaints had been closed.

This included complaints being either withdrawn, informally resolved or rejected by the council’s monitoring officer.

Closed cases also factored in seven formal hearings, including a recent hearing to discuss a complaint from senior council officers about the behaviour of former council leader Iain Malcolm during his time in office, despite the hearing taking place years after Malcolm resigned from the local authority as a councillor.

Other complaints have been linked to councillors’ comments on social media about other councillors and in one case, a health official, as well as declarations of interest at council meetings, telephone allowances and a text sent to a community centre official.

Recorded council data on complaints is anonymised unless the complaint is escalated to this formal hearing stage, where an investigating officer’s report outlines the context of the complaint, findings and recommended sanctions.

Council officers have previously admitted South Tyneside sees a “very, very high” number of complaints compared to neighbouring councils, as well as noting the resource implications of investigating such complaints.

When complaints are submitted they go through a ‘triage’ process and even if the complaint does proceed, informal resolution is always considered.

The most recent meeting of the Standards Committee heard that there had been “stricter time frames” introduced to help the council tackle its complaints backlog.

A report to councillors stated that “every effort is being made to conclude investigations” and that “external solicitors have been appointed to carry out independent investigations against a number of complaints”.

The report added that at the time of the meeting, there were 38 open complaints, with “several of these in a progressed state of formal investigation”.

John  Rumney, corporate lead for legal and governance and deputy monitoring officer, said the council had previously been “more generous” with complainants but a strict deadline was now in place for evidence to be provided, and that complaints would be closed if this is not met.

Mr Rumney added the number of complaints about councillors to the local authority “creates a strain and obviously has an impact on resources”.

It was noted that the cost of external investigators, when cases progress to final hearings before Standards Committee, can be “up to £20,000 per complaint”.

Professor Grahame Wright, independent chair of the Standards Committee, said a quarter of the 246 complaints were withdrawn by the complainant and that 62 per cent were rejected by the monitoring office.

He added that following the seven formal hearings about complaints, there were a further 12 cases that could end up at the formal hearing stage in future.

Prof. Wright said: “I would urge each councillor to consider carefully, and especially in conversation with your colleagues, as to what might be done to reduce the number of complaints going formally through this monitoring officer system.

“If there are interpersonal issues, I would hope that that’s a little bit more time spent trying to resolve them before getting to a formal complaint”.

The independent chair added that if a complaint suggests that there may have been a breach of the law, it can “add very significantly to delays” as the Standards Committee process essentially stops to wait for consideration by others, such as the police.

During discussion on the complaints report, councillor Paul Brenen asked whether there was anything in place to stop the “weaponisation” of the complaints procedure.

Legal officer John Rumney said that complaints are viewed at “face value” and in line with the council’s constitution, and while complaints can be rejected if they are “politically-motivated”, complaints with “substance” would always proceed.

He told the meeting: “If the complaint, even if there is a political element of motivation in there or we think there could be, if it’s got substance then it will proceed.

“There was some analysis done […] that showed that of the members [councillors] making complaints there was a very small number and there was also a small number of members about whom the majority of the complaints were being made.

“There is a pattern, or certainly there has been, but in terms of being able to address that and somehow stop it, there’s no mechanism to do that.

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“If the complaint comes in and has substance and has satisfied criteria then it’s taken forward, but we do try to achieve informal resolution of complaints, as the constitution requires us to do, at every stage.

“Because it’s less work for us, it’s less resource and it’s less drain on council finances but in some circumstances, it simply can’t be achieved and therefore must proceed to a hearing”.

In response to a question from councillor David Herbert, it was noted that the nine new complaints since March, 2024, included complaints from both councillors and members of the public.

Cllr Herbert raised concerns about the number of complaints being higher than the number resolved over this period, especially when the council was “trying to put the trend the other way”.

Councillor Shane Smith, fellow Standards Committee member, also asked how the complaints situation was “going to end” and raised concerns about the potential environment of “tit for tat” complaints in the process.

He added that only 2 per cent of the recorded 246 complaints in recent years (5 complaints) came from council officers which, he suggested, showed  “hopefully councillors are treating officers with respect and courtesy”.

The full Standards Committee report on councillor code of conduct complaints is available to view on South Tyneside Council’s website.