Cheshire East spends £200K probing complaints about councillors

Cheshire East Council spent the equivalent of nearly £202,000 in staff time investigating complaints about councillors in 2024/25, writes Belinda Ryan.

A total of 44 complaints were received by the monitoring officer during the last financial year. Of these, 36 related to town or parish councillors.

Some councillors were the subject of more than one complaint.

The highest number, 18, related to respect and failing to treat others with courtesy.

Another 16 related to failure to promote high standards of conduct, and 15 were complaints about bullying or breach of equality laws, and 15 about integrity.

There were 12 complaints about disclosure of confidential information/access to information and others included selflessness and openness.

A report to Thursday’s meeting of the audit and governance committee states: “Most of these complaints are dealt with at preliminary/initial assessment and have been determined as not in the public interest to pursue.

“It should be noted that there are 10 matters ongoing which are the subject of external investigation.”

The report states: “The costs of external investigations for 2024/25 to date is nil.

“However, the internal ‘costs’ associated with officer time for the work undertaken by the deputy monitoring officers, a legal officer who supports them, assumes work amounting to four hours per week per person for the year.

“This would amount to 832 hours.

“This covers meetings, and additional work on each matter such as reviewing complaints and responses, drafting decisions, and attending initial assessment meeting, with independent persons.

“This means that internal ‘costs’ for 2024/25 would be £201,885.”

The current external investigations all relate to town and parish councillors.

The report states: “Cheshire East Council does not currently seek to recover the cost of this work from town and parish councils, but this is currently under review.”

The meeting of the audit and governance committee takes place on Thursday, December 4, at 10.30am at Delamere House in Crewe.