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, you can complain to our monitoring officer.

How to complain about a councillor

You do not have to use our complaints form above, but your complaint should include all the information we request on the form.

A named councillor (or councillors)
At the time of the action you are complaining about, they must have been an elected or co-opted member of Rushmoor Borough Council
They must have been behaving in a way that was against our 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 (you can ask us for a copy of this register using the contact details below)

We have an agreed procedure. In the first instance, our monitoring officer will consider the complaint and decide one of the following:

To take no action
To arrange for a 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, a 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 they believe that one or more of the following applies:

The person complained about is no longer a councillor
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 a 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 Corporate Governance, Audit and Standards Committee
In more complex cases, ask for a formal investigation into whether there has been a breach of the code

Committee services

committeeservices@rushmoor.gov.uk