Making a Complaint about the Conduct of Elected Councillors

Councillors' conduct

All elected councillors, whether they represent a parish, town or the district, are expected to behave to high standards while undertaking their duties. To help make sure that this is the case, all councillors representing West Berkshire Council sign up to a  Code of Conduct (see Appendix H) [1MB] . 

Individual parish and town councils within the district have adopted and published their own Codes of Conduct. These are usually very similar to our own, but might have some slightly different rules by which they judge the behaviour of their members.

A councillor is judged against the Code of Conduct that a complaint relates to. For example, if a complaint relates to their conduct as a parish councillor, the Code of Conduct for the parish council is used.
 

Making a complaint

You can make a complaint if you feel that a councillor may have breached their Code of Conduct. Please read the complaints guidance notes [215KB]  before submitting a complaint.

You can complain about an elected councillor:

• by completing our online form
• by writing to the Monitoring Officer

Please note: the person that you complain about will usually be told who has complained about them and what the complaint is about, so that they can prepare a response.

If you don't want your identity to be revealed, you do have the right to request that your complaint is handled confidentially under certain circumstances, however you cannot make your complaint anonymously. Please read our confidentiality policy [40KB]  for more information.
 

What happens next?

You'll receive an acknowledgement of your complaint within five working days, and we'll perform an initial assessment within 20 working days.

The Monitoring Officer will then determine whether or not the matter needs to be investigated or if some other form of action should be taken.

You can see how complaints move through the evaluation process in our  complaints process flowchart [20KB] .