Complaints drop after Neil McEvoy leaves Senedd

Neil McEvoy was a Member of the Senedd until last May last year

Complaints against Senedd members have dropped from 214 to 44 in the past year, the standards commissioner says.

Douglas Bain's annual report says the departure of Neil McEvoy and others who were subject to or made many complaints is likely to be behind the big fall.

Other probable reasons include better understanding of the risks of 'liking' or 're-tweeting' other people's social media comments, it says.

Mr McEvoy lost his seat in the 2021 Welsh Parliament election.

He won the South Wales Central regional seat as a Plaid Cymru member in 2016 but was expelled from that party in 2018, later forming a new political party called Propel but failing to be re-elected to the Senedd last May.

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Mr Bain's previous annual report said a big rise in complaints in 2020-21, from 106 the year earlier to 216, was "very largely" due to Mr McEvoy.

Of the 216, 97 were about him, and he also made six complaints himself.

Mr McEvoy responded to that report by questioning the transparency of the standards process and the way appeals were handled, saying that it was "difficult" to take the people involved seriously.

Of the 97 complaints made against Mr McEvoy, 91 were deemed admissible by Mr Bain, almost all relating to "failing to register or declare an interest".

One of the complaints against him was made by a Senedd official and the other 96 came from members of the public.

None of the six complaints made by Mr McEvoy were deemed admissible.

Douglas Bain says the drop in complaints is "most welcome"

Earlier this year it emerged that he had been asked to repay £3,450 after being found to have wrongly used taxpayers' resources for a council election campaign, one of four investigations where he was found to have broken the Welsh Parliament's code of conduct.

The reports, published in February, also concluded that he had brought the Senedd into disrepute when he made secret recordings of an investigation into his behaviour.

Responding to those reports, Mr McEvoy said: "I owe no money, so there's nothing to repay."

He insisted the process was "rotten" and a "stitch-up".

Douglas Bain's report for 2021-22 says current Senedd members "better understanding of the risks" of liking or re-tweeting social media comments by other people might also have helped reduce complaints.

Induction training and a new "clearer" code of conduct may also have contributed, the report says.

Out of 44 complaints, 16 concerned standards of service, eight were about failing to register or declare an interest and six were about conduct on social media.

Of those 44 complaints 38 were deemed to be inadmissible, mainly due to a lack of enough evidence, and the six that were admissible were for minor breaches, according to the report.

'High standard of conduct'

Mr Bain said: "Last year saw an alarming increase in the number of complaints received, very largely due to the conduct of former member Neil McEvoy who was responsible for 97 of the 214 complaints received.

"Even discounting these 97 complaints the numbers this year are down by more than 50%.

"These latest figures do show that almost all members continue to observe the high standard of conduct rightly expected of them.''

He added: "As I predicted in last year's annual report, with the new code of conduct now in place we have seen a significant reduction in the number of complaints in 2021-22, which has had a positive impact both on my office workloads and budgets."

Neil McEvoy continues to represent the Fairwater ward on Cardiff council.