Big Rise in Complaints About Scarborough Borough Councillors

Concerns are raised over the time and money being spent investigating the complaints.

Councillors at Scarborough Borough Councillors have more complaints made against them than councillors in other local authorities in North Yorkshire.

28 complaints were made between January and May this year.

The council's Standards committee heard yesterday how that compares with other authorities.

Deputy Monitoring Officer, Carol Rehill, delivered the figures.

There were 62 complaints made against Scarborough Borough Councillors last year, that compares with 13 for Harrogate Council and just 2 for North Yorkshire County Council.

Many of the complaints are made by fellow councillors, 12 of the 28 made so far this year have been from councillors.

Councillor Rich Maw thinks more needs to be done to highlight the impact of the complaints.

Between January and May of this year, 28 complaints have been lodged against Scarborough borough and town councillors.

Of the 28 complaints lodged during the five-month period, 15 were referred for investigation while in only two cases were informal alternative actions taken or recommended by the independent persons and monitoring officer.

In January alone, thirteen complaints were lodged against councillors over allegations of “failure to declare a personal and prejudicial interest” and in all these cases a final report by independent officers is still to be issued.

Other complaints cover topics such as “disrespect towards other councillors via email” which was a complaint lodged by council members several times. Meanwhile, members of the public complained about “lack of response to a complaint” and “inappropriate comments made via social media”.

Overall, two complaints were withdrawn while a report to Scarborough Council’s Standards Committee states: “A number of the complaints that resulted in no further action did so because the alleged behaviour could not be said to have taken place when the Councillors against whom the complaints were made, were acting in their capacity as elected Members.”

In other cases the complaints have largely resulted in minor actions such as an apology, “updating the register of interests”, or “appropriate action taken by the group leader.”

An analysis of council documents between 2019 and May 2022 shows that at least 133 complaints have been lodged against Scarborough borough and town councillors in the past four years.

A large number of these complaints were lodged in 2021, when a total of 62 complaints were made, which, according to the council, “is an increase of approximately 169 per cent on previous years”.

Of the complaints made against councillors in 2021, 55 were against borough councillors while only seven were against town councillors.

That year the most common complaints related to allegations of disrespect towards various colleagues and members of the public, as well as allegations of bringing the council into “disrepute” over breaches of “coronavirus restrictions” and “during environmental protests”.

In 2019 there were a total of 23 complaints against councillors while in 2020 the figure stood at 20 complaints.

At the council’s upcoming meeting of the standards committee on Thursday 30 June, councillors are also set to discuss a “private and confidential investigation report” regarding a complaint lodged in 2021, where following an investigation “the [council] member refused to accept the recommendation”.

Subsequently, according to a report by the council’s director, Lisa Dixon: “The monitoring officer has referred the matter to the Council’s Standards Committee for determination”