Complaints against a councillor

Councillors must observe our code of conduct.

If you feel a councillor has broken any of the rules in the  Code of Conduct for Councillors [120kb] , you can complain to the council's monitoring officer. 

How to complain

You can complete the Make a complaint against a councillor form or download a  Complaint against a councillor [262kb] form.

You do not have to use the complaints form, but your complaint should include all the information requested on the form.

Your complaint must be about:

A named councillor (or councillors) who was, at the time of the action you are complaining about, an elected or co-opted member of Rushmoor Borough Council and who was behaving in such a way that it directly contravened the Code of Conduct.

You must send your complaint to:

The Monitoring Officer
Rushmoor Borough Council
Council Offices
Farnborough Road
Farnborough
Hampshire
GU14 7JU

Complaint leaflets and forms are also available in Braille, large print and on tape/cd. If you would like a copy of the information on this page, or a complaint form, in one of these formats or in a language other than English, please  contact Customer Services using the contact details on this page.

The type of behaviour covered by the Code of Conduct

Broadly, the code requires councillors:

• Not to discriminate unlawfully
• To treat others with respect
• Not to bully anyone
• Not to intimidate anyone involved in an investigation or proceedings about someone's misconduct
• Not to do anything to prevent council employees being unbiased
• Not to disclose confidential information
• Not to stop anyone getting access to information they are entitled to by law
• Not to damage the reputation of their office, or the council (where the conduct is linked to their public role)
• Not to use their position improperly to their own or someone else's advantage, or a disadvantage
• Not to misuse the council's resources, or allow them to be used improperly for political purposes
• To declare financial interests at meetings
• To leave a meeting where they have declared a financial interest in the matter being discussed 
• To register certain financial and other interests (a copy of the register is available for public inspection)

What will happen to your complaint

The council has an agreed procedure. In the first instance, the monitoring officer will consider the complaint and decide one of the following:

• To take no action
• To arrange for the monitoring team to make an initial assessment of the complaint.  The team will usually be made up of the monitoring officer, the Chief Executive and, where appropriate, the person appointed as an 'Independent Person'
• To refer the complaint to the police

Normally, the monitoring officer will not take any action on a complaint if it is considered that one or more of the following applies:

• The person complained about is no longer a councillor
• The monitoring officer considers that the complaint does not relate to behaviour in the member's official capacity as a councillor
• The matter being complained about happened more than 12 months before we received the complaint
• The matter being complained about came to the complainant's notice more than six months before we received the complaint

Where the matter is referred to the monitoring team, the team may decide to:

• Take no action
• Try to resolve the matter informally
• Arrange a hearing before a panel of councillors drawn from the Standards and Audit Committee
• In more complex cases, ask for a formal investigation into whether there has been a breach of the code