Bid to have complaints against Arun councillors heard in public fails

A request was made to hear details of complaints against councillors in public during Arun District Council’s standards committee on Thursday (13 October).

The committee reviews complaints against members of the district, town, and parish councils and is responsible for ‘promoting and maintaining high standards of conduct’.

Since the last standards committee in June, eight complaints were made – all of them against district councillors.

A brief summary of complaints against councillors is usually made public with further details discussed in private or ‘exempt business’.

This is allowed under the Local Government Act (1972) and is usually to protect personal details and commercially sensitive information.

Lib Dem councillor Jamie Bennett (Rustington West) argued that one complaint could have been discussed in open session, without referring to personal details.

“As a council we should be as open as possible,” he said, “I don’t believe we need to go into exempt; I believe this item could be dealt with without actually saying names.

“Recently this council kind of goes into exempt for quite a few reasons, I just feel like we don’t need to in this case necessarily.”

This request was unsuccessful and the committee voted to go into exempt business which means the public and press were excluded from the meeting.

This has been standard practice when complaints are being discussed.

Chair Paul English (Con, Felpham East) argued against discussing the complaints in open session.

“I think that a number of councillors possibly wouldn’t even begin to start discussing matters on orange paper, in case they make an error,” he said.

“I do not wish to take any chances of stifling debate, nor do I wish to have any problems with a councillor ending up with a standards issue against them.”