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Only two of the 38 complaints made about councillors in the Stratford-on-Avon district since April 2025 have been upheld, one of them in part, figures published by the district council show. The complaints cover both district councillors and town and parish councillors, and the figures go to the council’s Audit and Standards Committee on Monday 9 November.
What happened to the complaints
Of the 38 cases logged since April 2025, 21 were about district councillors and 17 about town or parish councillors. The council’s Monitoring Officer, its senior legal officer, found no breach of the Code of Conduct in 24 of them. One complaint about a parish councillor was upheld, and one about a district councillor was partly upheld. Four were withdrawn by the person who complained, one was closed because the councillor resigned, and one lapsed when no complaint form arrived. Six are still being dealt with, as is one older case from August 2024.
The most common allegations were that a councillor had treated someone with disrespect, brought the council into disrepute, or bullied or harassed someone. Others alleged that councillors had used their position improperly or not declared an interest. The report doesn’t name the councillors or the councils involved: details of Code of Conduct cases are kept private under local government law.
How complaints are handled
Anyone can complain if they think a district, town or parish councillor in the district has broken the Code of Conduct. The Monitoring Officer checks whether the complaint is covered by the code and, after consulting one of the council’s Independent Persons, decides whether it needs a formal investigation or can be closed. The district council handles complaints about parish councillors too, so a complaint about a councillor on, say, a village parish council goes to the district council.
The same report shows the council answered 90% of Freedom of Information requests on time between July and September, the minimum the Information Commissioner expects. It received no whistleblowing reports and made no applications to use covert surveillance in 2025/26 or so far this year.
Alex Harrington
Alex Harrington grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon and runs What's up, Stratford? as an independent guide to the town.
