Councillors back external probe into conduct leak

Councillors have backed a call for Warwickshire County Council to pay for an external investigation into how the result of the authority's Reform UK leader's conduct probe was made public.

Conservative group leader councillor Adrian Warwick officially asked the authority to commission an external party to look into the matter concerning George Finch "for transparency and public confidence".

The Local Democracy Reporting Service reported that an investigation, conducted by a council-appointed solicitor, found Finch had breached the county's code of conduct by publishing information that "could have jeopardised" a child rape case.

Warwick put forward his emergency motion, adding that it was "in line with information that is not in the public domain finding its way into the press on Friday".

"The Conservative group would request that the investigation into it is not conducted internally but externally for transparency and public confidence," he said.

Accepting the motion, chair councillor Dale Keeling said he had been "advised the request would go to the monitoring officer to consider the best way to deal with this".

Finch, who was cleared of any wrongdoing against three other elements of the code, referenced the matter himself during last week's council debate of a motion to remove him as leader.

During which it was said that the county's chief executive, Monica Fogarty, the authority's most senior official, had "expressly" told all councillors not to reference any conduct complaints.

Finch alleged that conduct complaints had been "leaked and then further discussed publicly when those matters are yet to be concluded", arguing that they "should be dealt with properly, fairly and through due process".

Asking for Finch to withdraw his comments, councillor Sarah Boad said other councillors had "respected the email we received from the chief executive; I ask him to do the same."

Finch can either accept or challenge the findings of council-appointed solicitor Claire Ward through a panel of the council's audit and standards committee.

If the breach is upheld, monitoring officer Sarah Duxbury then makes a judgement on what should happen, although the council's options are limited to writing to the councillor concerned, issuing a reprimand by motion, removing the councillor from committees or issuing appropriate publicity.

Warwick's motion was voted through without dissent by all councillors still present.

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This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.