Standards Complaint Form

Only use this form to make a complaint about the conduct of a Thanet District councillor or a member of one of the Parish or Town councillors in Thanet. If you want to make a general complaint about the service you have received from the council please see use our Complaints Form

On this form you will be asked to provide your name and contact details as well as details of your complaint.

Your address and contact details will not usually be released unless necessary or to deal with your complaint.

However, we will tell the following people that you have made this complaint:

• the Member(s) you are complaining about
• the Monitoring Officer of the authority
• the Chair of the Standards Committee 
• the Parish or Town Clerk (if applicable) 

We will tell them your name and give them details of your complaint. If you have serious concerns about your name or details of your complaint being released, please ensure you carefully read the section 

Privacy Statement

To provide this service Thanet District Council will collect and process personal information. We may check some of the information with other sources (e.g. government departments and other councils) to verify your identity and ensure that the information you have provided is accurate.

Your personal information is being processed because it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation or for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest.

Please refer to our Corporate Privacy Notice for further details on how we process your personal information and your rights. This is also available in other formats (e.g. print).

Please explain in this section what the member has done that you believe breaches the Code of Conduct. If you are complaining about more than one member you should clearly explain what each individual person has done that you believe breaches the Code of Conduct.

It is important that you provide all the information you wish to have taken into account by the assessment sub-committee when it considers your complaint in order to make recommendations to the Monitoring Officer on what action to take. For example:

• You should be specific, wherever possible, about exactly what you are alleging the member said or did. For instance, instead of writing that the member insulted you, you should state what it was they said.
• You should provide the dates of the alleged incidents where possible. If you cannot provide exact dates it is important to give a general timeframe.
• You should provide any relevant background information.

In the interests of fairness and natural justice, we believe members who are complained about have a right to know who has made the complaint. We also believe they have a right to be provided with details of the complaint unless you have good reason.

Please note that requests for confidentiality or requests for suppression of complaint details will not automatically be granted. The Monitoring Officer will consider the request alongside the substance of your complaint. We will then contact you with the decision. If your request for confidentiality is not granted, we will usually allow you the option of withdrawing your complaint.

However, it is important to understand that in certain exceptional circumstances where the matter complained about is very serious, we can proceed with an investigation or other action and disclose your name even if you have expressly asked us not to.

Finally, even if the Monitoring Officer agrees to withhold your name or the details of your complaint, that information will be disclosed to the subject Member no later than the date of the decision on how the Council intends to deal with your complaint.

Thanet District Council operates an equal opportunities policy to ensure that its services are delivered in a fair and non discriminatory way. To help the Council monitor the effectiveness of this policy we need to ask you for information about your personal background. This information will only be used for statistical monitoring and not for any other purpose.

All information will be treated as confidential.

Please tick appropriate boxes - this list is not meant to be exclusive and is given as a guide only; it is provided as it may help you to answer this question.

Please check the box below to confirm that you have read, understand and agree to the following statements:

• As far as possible, I confirm that the information given on this form is correct.
• I understand my data may be shared with other departments as permitted by law.