Apology made by Herts councillor who swore at public meeting, report says

FOUR ‘code of conduct’ complaints were made against county councillors in the past 12 months, according to an annual report presented to the council’s standards committee.

In three of those instances, an initial investigation found that no action was required, according to the report.

And in the fourth – where a councillor was accused of swearing at the complainant at a public meeting – a written apology was made.

According to the report, the language used by the councillor at the meeting was found to be ‘inappropriate’.

However the report said that the councillor had ‘expressed remorse and offered a written apology’ and that no further action was required.

In another complaint it was alleged that a councillor had been ‘rude’ to the complainant in an email. But the report said that the email did ‘not meet the threshold of breach of the Code’.

In a further complaint it was alleged that a councillor’s comment at ‘budget debate fell foul of the Nolan principle of honesty’. But after initial assessment the report says that no further action was warranted.

And in the final complaint listed there was an allegation that the contents of an email from a councillor were ‘incongruous, condescending, disrespectful, arrogant as well as being unhelpful and unprofessional’.

However an initial assessment, according to the report, determined that the language in the email was ‘not considered to be offensive, rude or dismissive’

The report – which runs between October 2022 and September 2023 – was presented to the committee on Wednesday (November 29).

Full details – including further details of the allegations and the names of the councillors – were circulated to councillors as ‘part II’ documents.

This means they are not available to the public – and any discussion related to the detail in the document would have been held behind closed doors.

The LDRS had requested, in advance of the meeting, that the full document was available to the public. But this was refused.

In a statement issued to the LDRS, a spokesperson for the county council said: “Complaints received in relation to Councillor conduct were reported and considered by the Standards Committee on Wednesday.

“The full list of complaints considered will be published on our website, but will remain anonymised as the committee strikes a balance between the need for transparency as well as protecting Councillors where complaints against them were not upheld.”