Code of conduct complaints cost councils more than $400,000
An AI-generated image of a man in a suit sulking with a dunce's cap on as money flies away around him.
Local Aotearoa can exclusively reveal that over the past two financial years councils across the country have spent nearly $439,000 handling code of conduct complaints about their elected representatives, with Invercargill City Council incurring the biggest costs of all.
Across the two years, some 88 complaints were received, with 24 of these being either fully or partially upheld. While many of these complaints were investigated and handled by councils’ chief executives or resolved amicably without being escalating further, where this couldn’t happen councils frequently resorted to bringing in independent lawyers to assess, investigate, and determine whether a breach of the code of conduct had occurred.
The $439,00 figure is largely made up of the cost of these legal fees, with staff time involved in handling complaints typically not being accounted for. Though given council chief executives were typically involved in handling complaints, their significant salaries means their time doesn’t come cheap either even if it’s not billed separately.
It should come as no surprise that Invercargill City Council topped the charts with two upheld code of conduct complaints that cost a combined $63,476.64. Both of these complaints related to their controversial Mayor Nobby Clark making inappropriate comments that have spurred calls for his resignation.
Wellington City Council, whose high profile code of conduct complaint against five councillors has been the source of much angst for that council, saw their sole complaint across the two years cost $43,000 to investigate.
Auckland Council recorded 24 complaints across the two years, with four of those complaints being upheld in some form, costing a combined $56,847.38.
To put some of these numbers in perspective, Invercargill City Council has 18 elected representatives across its council and single community board. On the other hand, Auckland has 21 elected representatives on its main governing body and nearly 150 more across it’s local boards, so it should come as no surprise that Auckland does end up with the lion’s share of complaints, though they are still over-represented versus the rest of the sector.
Other councils recording significant costs from handling code of conduct complaints included Dunedin City Council with four complaints (all upheld) costing $38,718, West Coast Regional Council with 2 complaints (one upheld) costing $39,980, and Kaipara District Council with two complaints (one upheld) costing $32,756.93.
While code of conduct complaints have produced some high profile issues and lofty legal bills, most councils actually recorded a clean sheet across both years. 52 out of 78 councils had no complaints in either financial year. This suggests that despite some claims council code of conducts were being weaponised to silence opposition, that’s generally not the case.
Only Horizons Regional Council failed to respond to Local Aotearoa’s Local Government Information and Meetings Act request in time, mysteriously claiming to have only received the request two weeks after it was emailed to every council.
Update:
Horizions Regional Council has finally responded and, along with claiming that they can’t find Local Aotearoa’s original LGOIMA request (despite us sending the follow up to the exact same email address), they have revealed they’ve had two code of conduct complaints across the two years, with neither being upheld, and costing a total of $5,627.89.
