Northern Beaches Council code of conduct complaints against councillors costs public $415k

Northern beaches ratepayers have spent more than $415,000 investigating complaints against elected councillors – half of which stemmed from councillors complaining about each other.

More than $415,000 of northern beaches ratepayers money has been spent on investigating complaints against councillors since the last election, it can be revealed.

In the latest council agenda, a response to a question of notice by Cr Vincent De Luca, showed that since the council was elected in 2016, $415,821 of public money has been spent investigating complaints against councillors.

In total there were 42 code of conduct complaints, half of them were made by councillors against other councillors, 17 were from members of the public and the remaining four were submitted by ‘other’, such as ICAC.

Despite all the money spent, none of the complaints resulted in formal disciplinary action.

Northern Beaches Council CEO Ray Brownlee at his Dee Why office. Picture: Adam Yip / Manly Daily

In a further breakdown of the figures, eight code of conduct complaints have been made by councillors against other councillors since January this year, three were made by members of the public and two were from ‘other’.

This year alone, the council has spent $142,067 investigating code of conduct complaints.

Cr De Luca said the CEO Ray Brownlee has the power to dismiss “trivial, vexatious or politically motivated” complaints and he should use them to save ratepayers money.

“I’m appalled it appears that the CEO could have dismissed these complaints under the powers given to him,” Cr De Luca said.

“This has resulted in ratepayers having to spend money which could have been used on footpaths, rate relief or other initiatives to help many suffering due to Covid and lockdown.

“Councillors using the code of conduct as a political tool should be ashamed of themselves.”

Councillor Vincent De Luca.

Cr De Luca said he had not made a code of conduct complaint against another councillor in this term.

Northern Beaches Council said it takes governance and accountability very seriously and makes no apology for investigating alleged breaches of the code of conduct of staff or councillors.

While the CEO does have the ability to dismiss claims, he does not take that responsibility lightly and will only exercise it in rare circumstances.

It said it believes the community and councillors would expect alleged breaches to be interrogated.

“An alleged breach of the code of conduct is not trivial,” Mr Brownlee said.

“The code is in place to guard against such issues as discrimination, harassment, conflict of interest, accepting gifts, fraud and illegal use of council resources.

“Our ratepayers and community would expect that all alleged breaches of the code of conduct are investigated.”