Local investigations and other action
From May 2008, it was up to standards committees of local authorities to refer complaints to a monitoring officer that a member has breached the Code of Conduct.The following guidance assists local authorities with conducting investigations under the new framework. It consists of an overview of local investigations and other action and a guide to conducting an investigation which is accompanied by a toolkit of useful documents. Both of these guides were published in June 2008.
In September 2008, authorities were sent a folder containing the above guidance and that in the guidance for standards committees section, for their monitoring officer, deputy monitoring officer, standards committee chair and standards committee vice chair. A folder was also sent to county secretaries.
Note – Further guidance on Other Action was published in May 2009 in response to feedback from authorities. This will be sent to authorities in summer 2009 (together with guidance on joint standards committees) for inclusion in their folders.
Further folders requested by authorities will be charged at £30.00 each to cover costs - if you require extra folders, please contact publications@standardsforengland.gov.uk. Alternatively, all of the information contained in the folder is available to download below and in the Standards committees section.
Downloads
Local investigations and other action
(PDF File)
Local investigations - toolkit
The guides below were written prior to May 2008 for use by local authorities, standards committees and monitoring officers on investigating complaints, and may be useful for investigations that commenced under the old framework:
Previous version downloads
Local investigations (November 2004)
Standards for England investigations
From 8 May 2008, amendments to the Local Government Act 2000 changed the way that complaints about members of local authorities are made. These complaints are about members failing to comply with their authority's Code of Conduct.
The description given here will apply to all complaints received by a standards committee after that date. While the procedures for complaints made earlier are broadly similar, they are not identical to those set out here. If you need information about how Standards for England is dealing with a complaint made before 8 May, please contact us on 0161 817 5300.
A guide to our investigation process
(You can also download these investigations guidelines as a pdf.)
Being involved in an investigation may be a worrying experience. This guide is intended to provide information about the investigations process, and aims to answer the questions that those who become involved may wish to ask.
Investigating allegations of misconduct is one of the ways in which we at Standards for England work to build confidence in local democracy. Over 100,000 people give their time as members. The majority do so with the very best motives and conduct themselves in a way that is beyond reproach. Public perception, however, tends to focus on the minority, who in some way abuse their positions or behave badly.
Anyone who considers that a member may have breached the can make an allegation to their local authority. If the allegation is about a member of a parish council, the complaint should be sent to the district council. Each allegation will be assessed by the local authority’s standards committee which will decide if it falls within its remit and should be investigated. If it does, the standards committee will decide whether the matter should be investigated locally by the monitoring officer or whether it should ask Standards for England to investigate the matter.
All of our investigations are carried out in accordance with a defined set of values. You can download a pdf version of these Investigations values and Standards for England's Guidance to Ethical Standards Officers.
The information in this guide to our investigation process is divided into the following sections:
Leading up to our investigation
At the end of our investigation
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