Councillor preferential use of a particular Facebook

Question

Hello

There are 2 Facebook groups in the village.A  Parish Councillor states they will only publish on one of them and that is in a personal capacity. When a post is of local interest/information is that classed as personal or would it be deemed to contravene the matter of not showing preferential treatment?

Answer 1

I'm not sure I understand the point you are trying to make here but for the record if I engage in social media as an individual which sites I post on are entirely my choice.

Comments

Echo this. In addition I would point out the fractured nature of many villages seem nearly as many groups with peoples feeds inevitably littered with duplicate content as a result)

Answer 2

Extract from a local code of conduct complaint in relation to a ward member being perceived by a planning applicant to have not engaged with them:

From Monitoring office - All members are fee to engage with who they wish, or deal with which matters they wish, and in this supporting or objecting or not being involved with the matter. 

As a result there is nothing in the law or the Code of Conduct which can compel a member to engage with someone on a matter and whilst the concerns of the Complainant are noted no breach of the Code arises from the complaint.

So it may be seen that not engaging with a particular matter is not a basis for upholding a complaint.

You'd need a stronger case than "...posted to 1 FB page but not another..." to satisfy the  "...improperly used their position to confer an advantage or disadvantage on themselves or another..." scenario of the CoC.