SCDC puts up barriers to complaining about Councillors

I have made complaints against 3 District Councillors over their Register of Interests. The webpage on the SCDC website says the following:

Complaints about councillor conduct
Code of Conduct Complaints Process

If you wish to complain about the conduct of a member of South Cambridgeshire District Council or a member of a town or parish council in South Cambridgeshire you may submit a complaint in writing (with supporting evidence) to:- 

The Monitoring Officer
South Cambridgeshire District Council
South Cambridgeshire Hall
Cambourne Business Park
Cambourne
Cambridge
CB23 6EA 

or via email to monitoring.officer@scambs.gov.uk. In your complaint you should set out in full ( attaching evidence as appropriate) why you think a member has not followed the Code of Conduct.

Ron says: That is what I did. I put the complaint in writing and attached the evidence and emailed all this to the Monitoring Officer. This is what I received back:

Tom Lewis

Dear Mr. Swanson

I refer to your e mail below which was received by South Cambridgeshire District Council on the evening of Monday 24th July and other similar e mails in relation to Cllr’s Topping and Nightingale.

Our Code of Conduct Complaints Procedure states ”If a Complaint is received other than on the Standard Complaint Form, we will not consider it but we will send the Complainant a copy of the form for completion.”

Therefore I attach the form for completion which can be returned to me directly.

I also attach a link detailing the procedure for how complaints are handled;

http://scambs.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s101233/P%20Code%20of%20Conduct%20Complaints%20Proceudre.pdf

I await hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Tom Lewis


Monitoring Officer South Cambridgeshire District Council

Ron says: having followed the procedure as set out on the SCDC website a barrier is now thrown up to delay or put off the complaint.