The Monitoring Officer has the specific duty to ensure that the Council, its Officers, and its Elected Councillors, maintain the highest standards of conduct in all they do. The main duties of the Monitoring Officer are set out below. The Monitoring Officers' legal basis is found in Section 5 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, as amended by Schedule 5 paragraph 24 of the Local Government Act 2000.
The Monitoring Officer has three main roles:
To report on matters he/she believes are, or are likely to be, illegal or amount to maladministration.
To be responsible for Matters relating to the conduct of Councillors and Officers.
To be responsible for the operation of the Council's Constitution.
In order to ensure separation of roles, the Monitoring Officer may not also fulfil the duties of the Chief Finance Officer or the Head of Paid Service.
On the SCDC website it says the following:
Please note that if your complaint relates to a Town or Parish Councillor, then you should make a complaint to the relevant Town or Parish Council in the first instance.
I made complaints against 5 Cambourne Parish Councillors over their Register of Interests. Having read two ways to make my complaints I did both. I emailed my complaints to the Monitoring Officer and to the Parish Clerk. I received the following from John Vickery, The Parish Clerk, regarding my complaint about Ruth Betson:
Ron
Thank you for your email I will look into the matter.
With the regard to your request for a copy of the Code of Conduct in our Publication scheme the supply of the document is by hard copy at the cost of 10p per sheet and there are 6 pages. If you could arrange the payment and supply an address for it to be delivered to I will be happy to provide the document. It will be on the web site in the future once the site has been updated a page is being created and populated with the Councils policy documents. The register of interest is part of this work.
John Vickery
Of course nothing about the other 4 complaints.
The response from the Monitoring Officer was as follows:
Dear Mr Swanson,
I’m afraid I have not heard anything from Cambourne Parish Council regarding your complaints, which you copied to me, but I wouldn’t have expected to be contacted by them. The procedure we follow in South Cambridgeshire is that complaints about parish councillors should be made in the first instance to the relevant parish council and dealt with through the parish’s own complaints procedures, which you have done. It is only if the parish council asks SCDC to handle a complaint due to a conflict of interest or if the complainant feels the parish council has not acted reasonably in handling their complaint that we would look at a parish council complaint. I attach the SCDC Code of Conduct Complaints Procedure for your information.
I am copying Mr Vickery into this response and trust that he will respond directly to you advising you on the progress of your complaint.
Kind Regards
Fiona McMillan
Therefore the first part is wrong and the second part is what the Monitoring Officer is using.
With the whitewash that was the report into my complaints I sent an email to the Monitoring Officer detailing my assertion that Cambourne Parish Council had acted unreasonably. I wrote:
Dear Fiona McMillan,
I read from the Cambourne Parish Council minutes of the meeting of 3rd November 2015 the said Council has taken a decision to basically absolve those councillors I complained against. As it says in your e-mail:
It is only if the parish council asks SCDC to handle a complaint due to a conflict of interest or if the complainant feels the parish council has not acted reasonably in handling their complaint that we would look at a parish council complaint
I feel Cambourne Parish Council has not acted reasonably in the handling of these complaints.
The reasons why I feel this to be so are:
1. The report from the Parish Clerk (item 22 M143 - 03/11/2015) was resolved by all those attending. This means the outcome was voted for by Cllrs Crocker, Betson, Masters and Patel. They therefore voted for a conclusion to my complaints that they had an interest in.
2. It is held that "ignornace of the law is no excuse". When a councillor signs their declaration of interests they are warned they need to update their Declation of Interests within 28 days. This was no done. The way I read the outcome is the "ignorance of the law is the excuse".
3. Cllr Simon Crocker is a paid Parish Clerk at Caldecote Parish Council. He is also a member of the Society of Local Council Clerks. John Vickery, The Parish Clerk at Cambourne Parish Council. who wrote the report is also a member of the Society of Local Council Clerks. Therefore there is a conflcit of interest here.
4. There has been no communication between John Vickery and myself unless I prompted the correspondence. I only found out the complaint was coming before the meeting after the meeting had taken place. The report itself is not objective nor transparent and I feel this is a whitewash to protect Cllr Simon Crocker because he didn't update his Declaration of Interests for nearly 2.5 years.
In conclusion I feel my complaints have been mishandled. 4 of those I complained against not only acted as the Jury, by voting for the report, but were also the Judges. There are conflicts of interest between the Clerk, John Vickery, and Simon Crocker, also a Parish Clerk (Caldecote Parish Council) and Chairman of Cambourne Parish Council.
Regards
Ron Swanson
Two weeks later I wrote again to the Monitoring Officer.
Dear Fiona McMillan
I wrote to you two weeks ago about my complaints about 5 Parish Councillors on Cambourne Parish Council and how I feel my complaints have been unreasonably handled by the Parish Council. I haven't heard anything from you one way or another. Please can you let me know what is happening.
Regards
Ron
I received the following reply from the Monitoring Officer on 11th December 2015:
Mr Swanson
I am sorry I have not been able to update you on progress. I emailed the parish council clerk to ask for their comments on the issue you have raised and have not yet received a response from them. I will send a chaser email today and let you know once I have heard from them.
Kind Regards
Fiona McMillan
Nothing since. The Parish Clerk can't be bothered to reply to the Monitoring Officer and the Monitoring Officer is not pursing the matter.
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