Make a complaint

Make a complaint about a specific councillor

Cumberland Council has a duty to promote high standards of conduct and, to achieve this, the council has an adopted Members’ Code of Conduct. 

The code applies to members whenever they act in an official capacity as a member or co-opted member of the authority. 

If you feel that a member has not acted in accordance with the Code of Conduct, you can submit a complaint to Cumberland Council’s Monitoring Officer.

The Standards and Governance Committee will promote and seek to maintain high standards of conduct by members and co-opted members. 

It has overall responsibility for considering any allegations that a member, co-opted member of Cumberland Council or a member on any town or parish council within the Cumberland area has failed to comply with their Code of Conduct.

When submitting a complaint that a councillor, co-opted member of Cumberland Council or a member on any town or parish council within the Cumberland area has failed to comply with their Code of Conduct, you must be sure that the conduct that you are complaining about occurred while the member(s) were in office.

For more guidance on submitting a complaint please see the Information for Potential Complainants guidance document.

Complaints about services, officers or Council policy should be submitted via the area links at the bottom of the page.

To submit a complaint about a councillor only, use the Make a complaint about a councillor form.

You must state the nature of your complaint and provide relevant evidence to substantiate your allegation.

If disability prevents you from making your complaint in writing, please contact Democratic Services on 01228 817039 for assistance.

The Standards and Governance Committee can only deal with complaints about the alleged behaviour and conduct of a councillor. It will not deal with complaints about any of the council’s departments or matters not covered by the council’s Code of Conduct.

Make a complaint about a service, policy or officer

Cumberland Council aims to serve its customers as effectively and courteously as possible. However, even the best service sometimes goes wrong - and if it does we want to know about it.

We welcome your complaint because it gives us the chance to put things right and improve services. 

Information on our local area pages is provided to help you tell us when something is wrong and to explain what we will do to rectify the issue.

We are working on a joint policy for service, policy and officer complaints. Until that is completed, complaint teams in the former councils will deal with those.