Kington Town Council will consider taking a civility and respect pledge at their April meeting

Members were told at a recent meeting that a recent report to Herefordshire Council’s Audit and Governance Committee revealed an increase in complaints involving councillors against other councillors at local councils.

The complaints included a member who used inflammatory language in a leaflet distributed to the public, a member who recorded a meeting and then used it to criticise the clerk’s accuracy of the minutes, a member who demonstrated domineering, aggressive and confrontational behaviour, a member who responded aggressively to a question, banged the table and left the room and a member who walked out of a public meeting after a resident was allowed to speak saying ‘he was not prepared to listen to this (nonsense)’.

All of the complaints received were resolved by the monitoring officer at the initial assessment stage and no further action was taken due to them being of little consequence and not in the public interest to use further public money.

But councillors were told there is still a cost to processing complaints and the underlying issues remain and may not have been addressed.

In some cases it appears parish or twon councils and/or councillors do not try or believe any local resolution is possible or achievable.

So Herefordshire Council is almost seen as the next stage in the dispute and a means for another body to resolve the issue.

Associations such as the Society of Local Council Clerks and National Association of Local Councils provide help to local councils to help them to promote civility and respect including providing training and support information.

There is a commitment by local councils to promote civility and respect in everything they do but only seven parish and town councils in Herefordshire have signed up to it – 4.6 per cent, extremely low compared to the national average of 17 per cent and the second lowest in the country.

The monitoring officer says there continues to be concern about the impact of bullying, harassment and intimidation in the public sector and its effect on councils, councillors, clerks and council staff.

The officer asks councils to consider alternative resolution to complaints under the Code of Conduct, to read and adopt all resources available and to adopt the Civility and Respect pledge.

“The monitoring officer’s advice is that the responsibility to behave respectfully, as one of the tenets of public life, remains paramount,” the officer said.

Deputy Mayor Councillor Martin Woolford said he thought they should consider it further

Liz Kelso said they would need to put the issue on the agenda for further discussion if they wished to consider it. Members agreed.