Complaints about a councillor

You may make a complaint about a councillor or co-opted member from:

  • Kirklees Council
  • Denby Dale Parish Council
  • Holme Valley Parish Council
  • Kirkburton Parish Council
  • Meltham Town Council
  • Mirfield Town Council

Contact the relevent parish and town council for a copy of their code of conduct:

Who should deal with my complaint?

To work out who should consider your complaint, please follow these steps in order.

  1. Consider what type of complaint you have (see Types of Councillor Complaints below) and whether it may be dealt with by the Leader of the Party/ Corporate Complaints Service or the Service.
  2. If it can be dealt with by one of the Council Services, please contact the relevant area.
  3. If the complaint relates to a Councillors behaviour, consider the form Code of Conduct for Members and complete the form Councillor complaints form.

Types of Councillor complaints and who to contact

Your concerns about a councillor might be considered in one of a number of ways. If your concerns actually relate to the provision of a particular council service then the individual service should respond to your concerns.

For some types of complaint you need to contact a different service
Complaint Information Who to contact
I haven't got a reply to my query about a service. Councillors are not employees but elected representatives.
They may not reply due to illness or holiday or if they have to concentrate on other issues.
Councillors do not make decisions on specific cases 		To get a response to your service enquiry contact the relevant Service.
I haven’t got a reply to my contact to a councillor. (which isn't about a service enquiry) Contact the Group Business Manager or Leader of the Party.
If you remain dissatisfied after this contact then you may discuss your concerns with the monitoring officer.
The councillor doesn't support my concern Councillors may form their own views and in doing so their view may not agree with yours. If you wish to express an opinion rather than a complaint you can attend a District Committee or respond to consultation where your views will be considered.
Committees
A councillor appeared to be rude to other councillors at a meeting. Councillors are political and there can be strong disagreement at Council meetings. Other members may choose to complain about behaviour if they so choose No contact necessary.
A councillor broke the code of conduct. You need to ensure you can clearly demonstrate that the code of conduct was broken. The Monitoring Officer
Councillor's behaviour The councillor has behaved inappropriately or unreasonably and the behaviour has been directed at you. The Monitoring Officer - Please consider the Member Code of Conduct and include which principle you believed the Councillor may have breached.
Councillor's financial impropriety You have evidence that a councillor has misused funds or behaved financially inappropriately. The Monitoring Officer - Alternatively, you may contact customer.standards@kirklees.gov.uk or contact the Police on 101 for this type of complaint.

Complaints process

What should be included in your complaint

If you make a complaint you must use the form provided by the Council's Monitoring Officer form Councillor complaints form. Any complaint should make it clear who it is about and why you think they have not followed the Code of Conduct that is applicable to them.

What is excluded

This process does not apply to complaints that are about:

  • People employed by the council (unless co-optees of the Health and Well-being Board).
  • Incidents that happened before a member was elected or chosen to serve.
  • Incidents that happened before Kirklees Council adopted the form Code of Conduct for Members on 24 October 2012 (different dates will be applicable to the parish and town councils - depending on when their Codes of Conduct were formally approved).
  • The way a council conducts or records its meetings.
  • The way a council as a whole has or has not done something. This may be a matter for the Local Government Ombudsman if the council has not dealt with the matter properly and it has not been resolved locally.
  • Decisions of the council or which are about one of the services it provides. In this case, you should ask how to complain using the relevant council's own complaints system.

If the Monitoring Officer cannot consider your complaint we will let you know and tell you who will consider your complaint.

The complaints process

The Monitoring Officer and Independent Person will review every complaint received. If the complaint proceeds they will consult the Kirklees Council Group Business Managers. The Monitoring Officer, Independent Person and the Chair of Standards will make a decision as to the most appropriate course of action for dealing with the complaint.

The options available include:

  • Informal resolution through, for example, seeking an apology from the member who is the subject of the complaint or attempts at conciliation.
  • Formal investigation to the Standards Sub-Committee
  • No further action.

Before making any decision on the complaint the Monitoring Officer will provide a copy of the complaint to the member who is the subject of that complaint ("the subject member") and provide them with an opportunity to respond to the allegations made against them. The subject member's comments will be taken into account before any decision is made. The decision will normally be taken within 28 days of receipt of your complaint. When the Monitoring Officer has taken a decision, they will inform you of their decision and the reasons for that decision.

Where the Monitoring Officer requires additional information in order to come to a decision, they may come back to you for such information, and may request information from the subject member. Where your complaint relates to a Parish or Town Councillor, the Monitoring Officer may also inform the Parish or Town Council of your complaint and seek the views of the Parish or Town Council before deciding what, if any, action to take.

In appropriate cases, the Monitoring Officer may seek to resolve the complaint informally. Such informal resolution may involve the subject member accepting that their conduct was unacceptable and offering an apology, or other remedial action by the authority. Where the subject member or the authority make a reasonable offer of local resolution, but you are not willing to accept that offer, the Monitoring Officer will take account of this in deciding whether the complaint merits formal investigation.

Depending on the nature of the complaint, the Monitoring Officer may refer the matter for formal investigation to the Standards Sub – Committee. See form Part 2 : Articles of the Constitution Article 9.4 for more inforamtion.

If your complaint identifies criminal conduct or breach of other regulations by any person, the Monitoring Officer has the power to call in the Police and other regulatory agencies.

There is no right of appeal against the decision as to what steps, if any, the Council intends to take in relation to your complaint. If you feel that the authority has failed to deal with your complaint properly, you may make a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman.

Contacting the Monitoring Officer