East Suffolk Council
Help us keep standards up
Suffolk Coastal District Council and Waveney District Councils take pride in the quality of service its elected Members provide.
However, we need to make sure there is a rigorous, independent procedure in place to investigate any complaints against our Councillors.
We want to appoint a new ‘independent person’ to help maintain the high standard of conduct of local councillors across both councils.
If you have an independent mind and a strong sense of what is right or wrong, this could be the role for you.
“All of our Councillors operate within the Suffolk Local Code of Conduct, which sets standards of conduct for selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. As the name suggests, the independent person plays an important role ensuring the process for investigating complaints is fair and impartial,” said Hilary Slater, Monitoring Officer for Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District Councils.
“We already have one independent person in place. However, as the role is shared across both Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District Councils, we feel it is important that we appoint a second person to ensure there is resilience within the complaint handling process.”
The role involves helping deal with any complaints about councillors’ conduct, as well as providing advice to any councillors who have been complained about.
If you are fair, pragmatic and committed to high standards of behaviour, we’d like to hear from you.
To ensure the independence of the role, you cannot be appointed if you are currently a councillor, co-opted member or officer of that council, or have been within the last five years. Neither can you be a relative or close friend of such a person.
If you are interested we would encourage you to apply online.
The successful applicant will be given training and will also be paid a nominal sum (of £300 a year, plus £50 with expenses for each complaint they investigate). It is estimated that the time commitment would be about three hours a month.
The closing date for applications is Friday, 10 March 2017, with interviews scheduled to be held on Thursday, 23 March 2017