Agenda item

Report of the Head of Legal and Commercial Services and Monitoring Officer

The members considered the report of the Monitoring Officer in relation to a complaint made about Councillor Peter Moult who is a Parish Councillor of Whitwick Parish Council. The complaint was made by Councillor Wyatt also a Parish Councillor of Whitwick Parish Council.

The complaint made related to a comment that Councillor Moult made at a meeting of the Parish Council on 15 October 2020 during the discussion of an item regarding a letter from a local interest group.  The meeting was being held remotely via Zoom.

The Monitoring Officer explained to Members that under the arrangements for dealing with complaints there was an opportunity for her to work with both parties to ascertain whether an informal resolution of the complaint was possible and outlined the informal resolution process that had been followed along with the work that she had carried out.

The Monitoring Officer advised that at a meeting of the Whitwick Parish Council on 19 November 2020, Councillor Moult made a statement about the matter. Following the meeting, Councillor Wyatt confirmed that the statement made by Councillor Moult did not fully address his complaint, as it did not include an apology for any offence, which may have been caused, and that he wished to pursue his complaint. 

Given that the informal resolution process had been unsuccessful, the matter had been referred to the Assessment Sub-Committee in order that it could consider the report and determine whether to:

- refer the complaint to the Monitoring Officer to take other action;

- request further information from the parties;

- refer the complaint to the Monitoring Officer for investigation;

- take no further action in respect of the complaint.

Members considered the details of the complaint. They noted that Councillor Moult had recognised that, in hindsight, he could have chosen a better phrase and, also noted the views of the Independent Person that the complaint would not be of serious concern to the public.

The meeting was adjourned for deliberation at 10.20am and reconvened at 10.48am.

RESOLVED THAT:

No Further action be taken as The Assessment Sub-committee considered that the initial complaint was not trivial as it related to a statement being made in a public meeting.  However, since the complaint was received by the Monitoring Officer, work had been done by the parties to try and agree a form of words to resolve the complaint and Councillor Moult had made a statement at the Parish Council meeting on 19 November 2020.  Although the form of words was not agreed by Councillor Wyatt, Councillor Moult’s statement did express regret and was apologetic in nature. Having considered the matter carefully the Assessment Sub-committee did not consider that it would be in the public interest to take any further action; they did not consider that the matter was “something which is of serious concern and benefit to the public”.