Deputy mayor happy with latest report on council complaints

Dubbo Regional Council publishes quarterly reports on the code of conduct complaints made against the councillors or chief executive officer Murray Wood.

None were received between the start of September and the end of November this year.

Deputy mayor Richard Ivey said it was good to see no complaints received for the quarter.

Four official complaints were recorded between March and August.

Two of the complaints were dismissed by the council in the early stages, however, the other two were investigated by a conduct reviewer. The nature of the complaints is confidential.

After being investigated by the conduct reviewer it was determined no further action should be taken.

The council spent $16,170 to deal with the two complaints. There's $50,000 budgeted to deal with complaints every year.

At the NSW Local Government conference in November, Dubbo council sought support to change the complaints system.

The goals was for the Office of Local Government to deal directly with complaints, taking them out of the councils' hands.

However, the motion wasn't passed.

A similar motion from Bega Valley Shire Council passed. It called for Local Government NSW to formally request the NSW Government to undertake a comprehensive reform of the existing Code of Conduct complaint system.