Councillors call for quicker complaints process at Sheffield Council

Councillor Mohammed Mahroof, member of the audit and standards committee, raised the issue during a recent meeting while an investigation relating to Cllr Mazher Iqbal, former cabinet member for business and investment, continues.

He said: “Sometimes people do say that the perception is that complaints are long-grassed so that public confidence in the complaining process is lost, etc. That seems to be a common comment that people do make and clearly this is not particularly good for public perception. The point I’m trying to make is: can we make it quicker?

“I know it needs a lot of work doing on it in the background but it still seems to me to be rather bureaucratic because the amount of pressure it puts on people is quite horrendous.”

Councillor Ben Curran, committee member, later added: “A long delay isn’t good for the person who has made the complaint because it means a long time to get the outcome and get justice.

“In our political world of being found guilty before any outcomes are taken, it’s not good for the person being complained against – quite often that’s the loss of your cabinet position or your scrutiny chair or a suspension while the investigation is being carried out. In reality you are being sacked while the investigation comes back, it files in the face of natural justice.”

Gillian Duckworth, director of legal and governance at the council, who oversees complaints said most complaints were dealt with promptly but more complex cases can take a long time.

She said: “I do try and get these things pursued as diligently as possible. I completely appreciate and understand the impact that this has, both on the member of the public who is complaining and on the subject member.

“I can’t immediately see what we could do to make the process any leaner. That might sound slightly outrageous, I suppose but there is a process to be gone through and we need to make sure that the investigators are given the space to do the job that we are asking them to do.

“Situation can arise that mean that processes are elongated, that might be the complainant who creates that situation, that might be the subject member, it might be a third party. But all of this is not done in the public domain, for the reason of natural justice so it’s very difficult to explain why any particular issue is taking so long to be dealt with until you get to the end of it. All I can say is I deal with these matters as diligently as I can do, over the last 18 months we have had Covid to deal with so that has created some delays…

“I’m quite happy for the process to be considered again and if we can come up with a better way of doing it, then let’s do it.”