Allegations against Rutland councillors accused of breaching conduct rules have been heard in private by a council committee. 

Rutland County Council's conduct committee, chaired by Cllr Oliver Hemsley (Independent) decided to hear the allegations behind closed doors on Wednesday evening (July 10) due to the discussion 'being likely to disclose exempt information' relating to financial business affairs, which may have included those of the local authority. 

There were two separate items on the agenda about breaches of the code of conduct although details were not given about which council the accused councillor sits on. 

After the meeting, Cllr Hemsley said the committee is 'working through a process' and more detail will be released in the coming weeks.  

According to the county council's policy, any accusation of a breach of the code of conduct is considered by the council's chief legal officer before deciding whether to accept it, dismiss it or bring it to the conduct committee for a decision. 

The councillors on the committee were presented with reports about each allegation and then had responsibility for deciding whether to uphold the complaint or dismiss it. 

If the complaints were upheld the committee has a series of sanctions available, such as removing councillors from committees, however the authority does not have the power to dismiss any councillor.  

The local democracy reporting service contacted the authority after the meeting for more details and the authority said: "The details of a complaint, including the final outcome remain confidential unless the council's conduct committee resolves that any information should be publicly disclosed." 

Summary details of an annual report about code of conduct matters were given by the council's deputy monitoring office in the public session, which lasted just eight minutes before the press and public were excluded. 

The report outlined that in the 2024/25 municipal year there were 27 reported breaches and nine were accepted by the monitoring officer.  

Since the meeting the authority has said of the nine accepted breaches; one was dealt with by this week's committee; two will go to a future meeting for consideration; two will form part of a separate report about Oakham Town Council and four found no breach had occurred, or could not be progressed. 

The county council commissioned a report into Oakham Town Council after deciding that a number of complaints and counter complaints within the council in recent months had suggested there were issues in the council. This report has not been made public.