Council complaints (From The Northern Echo)

Council complaints

6:09pm Friday 3rd February 2012 in Letters

UNFORTUNATELY, in recent years there has been a retrograde change in the rules governing complaints against serving local authority councillors. Now, in the first instance, those complaints are judged by a local standards board, which mainly consists of councillors serving on the local authority against which the complaint is being made.

When attending a full council meeting, a councillor has to complete a declaration of interest form and declare verbally if they have a personal and non-prejudicial or personal and prejudicial interest regarding any item on the agenda.

In my view, there needs to be greater transparency to improve public confidence in the complaints procedure.

I believe this can only be achieved by the local standards board consisting entirely of independent members who have no connections with the councillor against which the complaint has been made.

Keith Dewison, Billingham.