City councillors are waiting years for standards cases against them to be decided, a recent meeting heard.

Winchester City Council's audit and governance committee heard that 12 cases against city, town and parish councillors are currently ongoing.

The earliest active case was received in March 2021, meaning it has been going for two years.

Between March 2021 and September 2022, there are 12 active cases against councillors. Four against city councillors and eight against town or parish councillors.

Cllr Tony Bronk, who represents Twyford and Colden Common on the city council, described his experience. 

He said: “As a code of conduct case is still ongoing about me, I won't make reference to that, but I will refer to my experience of the process. During the past four years, several residents have sought my assistance to press for the quicker resolution of their complaints against ward or parish councillors. 

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“Last May and June, after several people had copied me into emails relating to code of conduct complaints against parish councillors, I wrote in the ward councillor report to the parish council that code of conduct complaints were resource intensive and they can sometimes take more than one year to be determined. I have recently been informed that I will be asked at the next parish council meeting for a progress report on those complaints based on the information before you.”

The city council's new monitoring officer, Sharon Evans, said that she was looking to speed up the process. Ms Evans said: “It's concerning sitting here as the new monitoring officer to hear of such delays. There have been a number of factors such as staff and officers leaving. It is quite common for delays to happen with complaints. I am looking at ways to shorten the process.”

Cllr Brian Laming said: “I'm pleased to hear what you're doing as Winchester has been really bad on this. It has been going on for a long time.”

Cllr Vivian Achwal described her experience of the process. She said: “I have a lot of sympathy for Cllr Bronk. Unfortunately I have had a standards case against me which lasted two years. The stress I went through was awful, although I did win the case. I'm really pleased we can have movement on this sooner rather than later. I try to not go on Facebook too much now because some of the comments are really unpleasant.”