DETAILS of every single complaint against councillors on the Wirral over the past 18 months have been revealed – as well as how many of them were actually upheld.

From failing to treat others with respect to conduct falling outside of what is expected, complaints against a total of 19 members have been submitted since June last year.

But it would appear making a complaint does not automatically mean a councillor will be punished – in fact the reality is quite the opposite.

That’s because of the total 19 complaints, just two were upheld after the entire process had gone through, with three having found a resolution before the council had to take action against members.

It comes after the council was slammed last week for taking too long to deal with 90% of complaints against members since 2012, with one taking four years to process.

In terms of complaints over the past 18 months, however, none took so long to be dealt with.

The report to be discussed by members of the standards and constitutional oversight committee on November 20 says: “The administration of standards complaints should be dealt with as efficiently as possible to ensure matters are concluded quickly and closure of issues secured for both complaint and the subject member(s) involved.”

Here is the full list, including the date received, nature of complaint, date concluded and crucially, whether it was upheld or not.

Some complaints related to more than one member, hence why there are 10 entries and not 19.

It’s understood a single complaint relating to two councillors was upheld, while the three cases where a “local resolution” was found refer to one councillor each. The rest of them were not upheld.

  1. Received June 5, 2017. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded July 24, 2017. Not upheld.
  2. Received July 8, 2017. Failed to treat others with respect. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded October 31, 2017. Upheld.
  3. Received July 14, 2017. Failed to treat others with respect. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded July 28, 2017. Local resolution found.
  4. Received September 25, 2017. Failure to declare interest. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded November 23, 2017. Not upheld.
  5. Received September 28, 2017. Failed to treat others with respect. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded December 7, 2017. Not upheld.
  6. Received September 29, 2017. Failed to treat others with respect. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded December 7, 2017. Not upheld.
  7. Received October 3, 2017. Failed to treat others with respect. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded December 7, 2017. Local resolution found.
  8. Received October 20, 2017. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded November 22, 2017. Not upheld
  9. Received October 23, 2017. Failed to treat others with respect. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded November 20, 2017. Local resolution found.
  10. Received November 29, 2017. Failed to treat others with respect. Conduct inconsistent with the duty to promote and maintain high standards. Concluded January 18, 2018. Not upheld.

The information has been released after it was found complaints against elected councillors in Wirral have only been completed in the set time scale in 10% of cases over the last six years.

The news was discussed at an extraordinary meeting of the authority’s standards and constitutional oversight committee last week, called by the Conservative group who said the methods used by the council “need to improve”.