Complaint about a Member?
Members of the Council (both elected and appointed) must abide by a Code of Conduct which governs their behaviour and actions when carrying out their roles and duties as members of the local authority.  If you have a complaint about a Member, and you consider that he or she has breached this code, you should write to the Council's "Monitoring Officer", Mr Martin Walker in the Administration Department at the Town Hall, Wandsworth High Street, Wandsworth, SW18 2PU or email him at mwalker@wandsworth.gov.uk

You can download a complaint form and guidance in pdf format.

 Complaints form (305 kb)

The way in which the Council must deal with such complaints is set out in legislation and is overseen by a national organisation called the Standards Board for England.  It involves initial assessment (within 20 working days of receipt of the complaint) by five members of the Council's Standards Committee (sitting as the Assessment Sub-Committee) at a private meeting which is chaired by one of the independent members (someone who is not a councillor).  They will provide a summary of their decision to the complainant (and usually to the Member concerned).  If they decide that no action should be taken in response to the complaint, the complainant may then request a review of the decision.  The review will be considered by five different members of the Standards Committee (sitting as the Review Sub-Committee), again at a private meeting chaired by an independent member.  The complainant is again given a summary of the review decision.

If the initial assessment, or a subsequent review, concludes that the complaint merits further investigation or other action, the Monitoring Officer will be instructed to arrange for this to be carried out. Where an investigation is carried out, the Council's full Standards Committee, which is also chaired by an independent member, will conside kb)e investigator's report and decide whether a formal hearing should be held. If, as a result of that hearing, it is concluded that a Member has breached the Code of Conduct, a sanction may be imposed ranging from, say, requiring the Member to attend appropriate training to suspending the Member for up to six months. The Member has a right of appeal to the Adjudication Panel for England. The Monitoring Officer will keep the complainant informed about the progress of their complaint.

More serious allegations will be referred at an early stage to the Standards Board for England - if these cases are formally investigated, breaches of the Code of Conduct would then be presented in hearings before a tribunal drawn from the Adjudication Panel for England which has powers to disqualify Members for up to five years.