By Jaimie Kaffash
20 September 2010
Serious misconduct by councillors will become a criminal office, communities minister Andrew Stunell announced today.
Stunell said that Standards for England, the councillor watchdog, had ‘become a vehicle for malicious and frivolous complaints’. The government announced in May that the quango would be axed. It dealt with 6,000 complaints since its May 2008 relaunch, but half of these were judged not worthy of further action.
The government will legislate to make serious misconduct by councillors an offence that will be tried in court. It has also promised to give the Local Government Ombudsman ‘real teeth’. Local authorities will be legally obliged to implement the findings of the ombudsman, which investigates public complaints over the way they have been treated by their council.
Stunell said: ‘The Standards Board regime ended up fuelling petty complaints and malicious vendettas. Nearly every council had investigations hanging over them – most of which would be dismissed but not before reputations were damaged and taxpayer money was wasted.
‘Frivolous allegations undermined local democracy and discouraged people from running for public office.’
Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles added: ‘Failure to register or declare an interest, or deliberately seeking to mislead the public about an interest, will become a criminal offence while a newly empowered Local Government Ombudsman will investigate incompetence on behalf local people."
Public Finance recently revealed that thecost of abolishing Standards for England will be more than it saves because of the pensions liabilities it holds.
