New Arun council policy to deal with ‘challenging’ members of public

Council staff say the policy is needed because there has been an ‘increase in challenging behaviour

Arun District Council’s corporate support committee adopted the new ‘unreasonable behaviour’ policy on Tuesday (18 January).

Council staff say the policy is needed because there has been an ‘increase in challenging behaviour from a minority of customers’ in recent years.

Under the new policy, anyone deemed to have acted ‘unreasonably’ during the complaints process, or when making an FOI or GDPR request, by making repeated complaints or acting aggressively could have action taken against them.

A council lawyer said: “It’s becoming increasingly obvious that some complainants are becoming unreasonable and as a consequence we are having to adopt a policy.”

He said that the policy would uphold the right of the public to complain to the council but would ensure only ‘genuine complaints’ are heard whilst protecting the mental health of staff.

“It is to deal with that very, very small minority of people who behave unreasonably and for whom there is currently no provision for dealing with,” he added.

Officers said that such a policy is accepted as ‘good practice’ by the Information Commissioner’s office (ICO).

Ultimately, the council’s information management team will decide whether a person has breached the policy.

The policy would then be shared with the person or group, giving them an opportunity to ‘amend their behaviour’.

Mike Clayden (Con, Angmering and Findon) asked that the council leader or deputy leader be consulted if the policy is used.

This was accepted by the committee which also heard that councillors would be informed if a resident from their ward was subject to the policy.

This comes just months after the council reported an ‘unprecedented’ number of complaints about councillor conduct which was partially attributed to meetings being live streamed during the pandemic.

The majority of complaints were not investigated further and have since returned to normal levels with ‘very few formal complaints submitted’, according to council officers.