A LABOUR councillor has accused opponents of abusing the local authority’s standards procedure after a swathe of complaints were dismissed at the first hurdle.

On Tuesday, St Helens Borough Council’s standards committee was given its annual update regarding code of conduct complaints made against councillors.

Jan Bakewell, the council’s director of legal and HR, said there had been 55 complaints since January 13, 2020, including three against parish councillors.

Ms Bakewell, who took over monitoring officer duties from legal services manager Mark Fisher last May, said there were around 30 complaints made the previous year.

The vast majority of complaints made against councillors in recent years have related to posts on social media, although Ms Bakewell did not specify if this was still the case.

Of the 55 complaints made over the past year, 37 were made by other members, while 20 were made by members of the public or other organisations.

Ms Bakewell said a few complaints were made by both members of the public and an elected member about the same issue, hence why the two figures exceed 55.

Of the 55 complaints, 41 were concluded at the first stage, while none proceeded to formal investigation at stage three of the procedure.

Ms Bakewell said 10 complaints related to someone who is no longer an elected member, so had concluded it was not in the public interest to pursue.

A total of six complaints were resolved by an alternative resolution, such as informal advice or training, which were accepted by members each time.

Two complaints submitted anonymously were dismissed following initial discussions, while two complaints were deemed, in the view of the monitoring officer, to relate to conduct that occurred while not acting in the capacity of a councillor, as per the code of conduct.

Ms Bakewell said sufficient information was not provided for two complaints following initial discussions with the complainants, while one related to incidents that were so long ago there was little benefit in investigating.

A total of eight complaints are still outstanding, and will be dealt with by Ms Bakewell and the two deputy monitoring officers.

Given the rise in code of conduct complainants, Labour councillor Michelle Sweeney questioned whether some were a “misuse” of the procedure.

“Resources are limited,” Ms Bakewell said. “My team, the three of us, we always try our best to address any complainants at the earliest opportunity, and in discussion with the complainant.

“Clearly over the last year, with other demands, that’s not been easy, with Covid, on top of the day job.

“What I would say, is that complainants are advised about the public interest test, and it is pointed out to complainants when matters might perhaps cross into issues around legitimate political challenge and opposition and what the difference is between that and misconduct under the code.”

Cllr Andy Bowden, cabinet member environment and transport, claimed the local authority’s complaints procedure has become a “political tool”.

He said some people are increasingly seeing it as an opportunity to make “political capital”, including some members of the public.

Cllr Bowden said: “We can have all the training and guidance we want, but if others choose to use this process as a political tool, it wastes your time, it wastes our time as a board, it de-legitimises genuine complaints and genuine opportunities to hold us to the standards that we should be performing to.

“So I think there are real difficulties around this, and I think there’s learning, but not just learning by councillors, it is learning by the public and some who wish to enter politics, that this is not the way you politically debate. You politically debate outside this.

“When someone disagrees with you, you don’t reach for the standards board to look at excuses other than the policy under political points you want to make to try and get yourselves elected, or to try and diminish the standing for an individual within their community.”