Code of Conduct complaint

Question

Someone has made a Code of Conduct complaint against a councillor, a decision has been made by the monitoring officer and they have sent their decision to the complainant, councillor and clerk, can the clerk publish the result as I thought that Code of Conduct complaints were private and confidential?

Answer 1

Code of Conduct complaints are private while they are being investigated.

If the decision, after investigation, is that they have breached the code then it is in the public interest that this is made public. Many monitoring officers will publish the COC Decision Notices on the main council website. So nothing to stop the clerk publishing it on the parish website.

Comments

What about if they have not breached the code?

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Below is an extract from  District Council as to how matters are handled if the code is found breached.    Looking at this you need to see what your district council procedures are.
Such resolution may include the member accepting that his/her conduct was unacceptable and offering an apology, and/or other remedial action suggested by the Parish Council.
If the member complies with the suggested resolution, the Monitoring Officer will report the matter to the Standards Sub-Committee and the Parish Council for information, but will take no further action.
This report will be considered in closed session.