Bedford Borough Council’s Standards Committee heard that a wave of complaints against borough, town and parish councillors had been dismissed.
The council’s monitoring officer said most of the complaints involved parish and town councils, and he will work closely with them to raise awareness of the Code of Conduct.
The committee heard on Wednesday (17 September) that 17 complaints have already been received in the current municipal year: two about borough councillors and 15 about parish or town councillors.
None of the allegations were upheld, with no cases referred for formal investigation.
The council’s monitoring officer, Graham Watts, told the committee that the change to reporting complaints by municipal year would give a clearer picture of behaviour, particularly following elections.
He also revealed the outcome of a backlog of 47 historic complaints lodged between November 2023 and December 2024 from the same town/parish Councillor.
A report summarising the cases showed that 16 cases were judged as “robust political debate”.
Patterns of behaviour linked to one unnamed parish council were said to have been addressed previously through a formal letter and recommendations for improvement.
Serious process
Although cllr David Sawyer (Lib Dems, De Parys) hinted that reports in the local media show that the issues may not yet be fully resolved.
Mr Watts said: “It’s really important that people understand submitting a formal complaint about a councillor is a serious process. It has to be a significant alleged breach to warrant the resources required for a full investigation.”
Committee members acknowledged the scale of work involved but stressed that complaints had been handled thoroughly.
Cllr Sawyer said publishing more detail was important “to show anyone reading it that we have not just dismissed complaints out of hand”.
Mr Watts said: “One of the things that I really want to do is engage more in the parish and town council network.
“It’s really important that people understand that submitting a formal complaint about a councillor alleged to have breached the code is a formal process.
“It has to be quite a significant complaint of a breach to warrant the resources to be put in place for investigating and ultimately bringing it to a hearing.
“There is a bar that is in place, and the guidance helps navigate through that,” he said.
