‘Broken bodies’: report finds Office of independent Assessor bogged down by frivolous complaints from local councillors

The state’s council watchdog is being swamped with thousands of complaints mostly from councillors about other councillors, a report into the Office of independent Assessor has found.

Local councillors have been clogging up the Office of independent Assessor with frivolous complaints.

Local councillors are swamping the state government council integrity complaints system with frivolous complaints about political opponents, which had resulted in a massive backlog of misconduct matters.

The finding was made in a 123-page report into the state’s local government watchdog, the independent Assessor, with eh major recommendation to finalise conduct cases within three months and put a time limit on opening up cases.

The report, tabled on October 14, found the way complaints about councillors were dealt with needed an overhaul and made 40 recommendations to the office.

Frivolous complaints tied up staff and although the inquiry report recommended no changes to the Office of independent Assessor’s powers, it urged “strengthening” of the Councillor Conduct Tribunal to deal with a massive backlog of misconduct matters.

Findings showed a three-year backlog of cases before the Councillor Conduct Tribunal with more than 4000 complaints made about local councillors over that time.

The report said the majority, or 53 per cent, of the complaints were made from within council ranks and only 37 per cent from the public.

The year-long parliamentary inquiry into the OIA also found complaints about local councillors rose 50 per cent this financial year to 4165.

Biggest changes recommended were to the inappropriate conduct scheme, where one unresolved matter was 3.5 years old.

The most recent was a case of councillor, which took two years to finalise about requests for council employees to have a container of rotten food collected as waste from a constituent.

The report also recommended spending more money on staff at the Office of independent Assessor to deal with legitimate complaints and alleviate the backlog.

The Office of independent Assessor welcomed the report and push for more staff and said there was evidence some councillors were misusing the system and wasting OIA resources.

“In the past six months, just five councils accounted for 83 per cent of ‘councillor v councillor’ complaints.” the spokesman said.

“The inquiry report acknowledges that the problem of the councillor complaint system being used for political purposes cannot be fixed by altering the councillor complaint system.

“It recommends investigating a local government monitor to operate as a short circuit and to encourage positive practices in the targeted councils.”

Shadow Minister for Local Government Anne Leahy said the report showed the “broken integrity bodies” were preventing elected representatives doing their jobs.

“Labor’s Local Government complaints system has failed. It needs an overhaul and this report can provide just that,” she said.

“Apprehension and fear among councillors about the councillor conduct system is impacting how they interact with the complaints framework and is leading to the unnecessary over-legalisation of the system.”

She said it was now up to the Deputy Premier to implement the recommendations in full and without delay.

If all the recommendations are adopted by Local Government Minister Steven Miles, councillors who have had complaints made about them dismissed will no longer have to record the matters on their conduct register.

Complaints from local councillors and from within local governments have made up the majority of complaints

However, inappropriate conduct matters will continue to be published and experienced local government staff could be hired to oversee councillor complaint assessments.

Southeast Queensland Community Alliance president Chris Walker said the report was thorough and most of its recommendations should lead to an improved process for dealing with complaints about local councillors.

He said it was important that the OIA was aware of the abuse of process by people or groups making vexations complaints.

“I note that in the case of Redland City Council, its public reports show that since July 1, 2022 there have been 32 complaints made and only three upheld – less than 10 per cent,” he said.

“It appears that many of these unsustained complaints were targeting one or more councillors who have expressed views publicly about mayor Karen Williams.

“We welcome the recommendations aimed at ensuring investigations by the OIA and decisions by the Councillor Conduct Tribunal are completed in a timely fashion,” he said.

However, there was no support for the local council’s ceasing publishing details of complaints that were not sustained because the information may indicate a pattern of abuse of the complaints process by people associated with a particular local council.”