Changes will be made to the way complaints against Rutland councillors are handled.

At Rutland County Council's (RCC) conduct committee on Tuesday 2nd September, it was agreed that when the authority's chief legal officer had concluded a conduct investigation and decided a councillor had not breached their council's code of conduct, the matter would not go before the committee for consideration.

The county council has responsibility for handling all conduct allegations made against any county or parish councillor in Rutland and follows defined written arrangements on how to deal with issues.

In the most recent year 27 complaints were reported to the council and nine breaches were accepted by the monitoring officer and required further investigation.

The council's deputy monitoring officer Sarah Khawaja brought an amendment to the committee, asking for a change to the current arrangements.

She said: "The main proposed change is to remove the requirement to refer complaints to the conduct committee for a decision following a full investigation when no breach of the code of conduct has been identified. And the reason for the recommendation is because it calls for a conduct committee hearing unnecessarily where there's simply nothing to be decided upon."

When the monitoring officer receives a complaint and thinks a breach of the code of conduct may have been committed, there is the option of an informal resolution or the matter can be taken further with a full investigation. Those complained of are not made aware of the complaint until the legal officer decides there may have been a breach. 

Complaints can be made by anyone, however the person complained of must have been acting in their capacity as a councillor when the alleged standards breach took place.

At the meeting held at the Oakham headquarters, committee member Councillor Karen Payne (Con) questioned why the changes needed to be made when the council had recently decided that no changes to the constitution ahead of the impending local government reorganisation should be made, unless it was a statutory or mandatory requirement. She said some of the allegations when a breach was not found still had learning that was useful to the committee.

Ms Khawaja responded by saying that the breaches would still be made known to the councillors in the annual report and it could be considered unfair for those complained about and not found to have breached the code to have to wait as long as a year to be dealt with.

The meeting went into a private session after the change to the arrangements was agreed. The councillors discussed two allegations and their decision will be made public in the coming weeks.

Last week, Jadene Bale, a councillor on Cottesmore Parish Council, was found to have breached the code by suggesting in an email to councillors and the clerk that financial arrangements within the council could mean the clerk would be able to book a holiday without anyone knowing. 

Oakham Town Council will also meet with the county council's legal officer at a date to be arranged to discuss issues there following a number of complaints made against councillors.