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.
Download
You can also download these investigation guidelines as a PDF file below
A guide to our investigation process
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.
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
All of our investigations are carried out in accordance with a defined set of values.
PDF versions of these are available below
Guidance to Ethical Standards Officers
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