Councillor complaints procedure at Bristol City Council to be reviewed

The way complaints against city councillors are handled will be reviewed

The way complaints against Bristol city councillors are investigated is to be reviewed.

It comes after a Freedom of Information (FoI) request revealed not a single complaint has been upheld in six years.

Democracy campaigners told a council meeting they had lost faith in how cases are dealt with.

The council's monitoring officer, Tim O'Gara, said all procedures had been followed in the correct way. A working group will now review the process.

Bristol City Council's values & ethics sub-Committee heard how an FoI request by Keith Farley revealed there had been no breaches of the member code of conduct since at least 2017.

'Something is wrong'

But democracy campaigners, including those whose complaints against elected members had been rejected, said they were unhappy with how complaints were dealt with and demanded drastic changes.

Resident Lesley Powell said "something is badly wrong here".

"The lack of information made it impossible for members to ensure adequate procedures were in place," she added.

Another resident, Sian Ellis-Thomas, told councillors there was "too much concentration of power" in monitoring officer Mr O'Gara, who conducts the investigations and is responsible for the authority complying with the law.

Mr O'Gara said: "The responsibilities I have are codified in the council's constitution.

"They clearly set out the responsibility I have to manage the complaints process and exercise my independent judgement in respect of the complaint that comes in.

"It's the role of this committee to make sure there is an adequate process in place, but not to get into the detail of individual complaints."

The monitoring officer is assisted by one of three "independent persons" from outside the council when considering complaints.

But councillors on the committee expressed concerns that the current system left them unable to scrutinise decisions and agreed to look at rewriting the rules to improve transparency.

Review the process

Members agreed to form a working group and meet officers to review the process, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Brown said: "I don't feel there is enough information here to give us assurance that the system is working as it should.

"I appreciate it's difficult because of the confidentiality concerns, but the additional information would help provide that assurance to the committee and the broader public."

Sub-committee chairman Adebola Adebayo said she thought the procedures were good, but hearing they could be better, agreed they should revisit them.