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Northumberland County Councillors praised after no 'substantial' complaints against members in recent months; It comes after council officers battled through a large backlog.

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Byline: By, James Robinson

Northumberland County Council's top legal officer has joked that he was lured to the authority under "false pretences" after no complaints were lodged against councillors since he began work.

Stephen Gerrard was speaking at a meeting of the authority's standards committee on Thursday. In recent years, many members of the council have been subject to a series of complaints.

The damning Max Caller report into governance at the authority said that many of these were from council officers and even other councillors, with the process supposed to be primarily for use by the general public. When the Caller report was published in summer 2022, there were some 30 conduct complaints ongoing against councillors -but as of Thursday's meeting, that had fallen to just one.

A report presented to members showed that there had been seven complaints issued against councillors in 2023, but none of these remained outstanding. There had also been 13 made against parish councillors.

Mr Gerrard said: "I did wonder whether I was brought in under false pretences. It was suggested that this was a hotbed of all sorts of issues -but over the past four months here, the experience I've had is I have had no substantial complaints in relation to members conduct.

"That probably says a lot about the culture of the organisation. What happened...

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