THE handling of an investigation into claims of bullying against a Forest councillor has been criticised after taxpayers were left with a bill of more £62,500.

The complaint against Cllr Philip Burford, the Independent district councillor for Hartpury and Redmarley, would normally have been investigated by the council’s then monitoring officer.

She stood down from the probe because of a conflict of interest and an external investigator was appointed.

Chair of the council’s audit committee, Cllr Harry Ives (Con, Lydney North) said the officer should have had nothing to do with the investigation as soon as the complaint was made on March 9.

He said: “If the monitoring officer is recused due to a conflict of interest, then they must ensure they have no further involvement with the case whatsoever,”

“On that day the monitoring officer would have become aware she had an interest in the complaint,” Cllr Ives told the audit committee.

“So from that point on, there should have been no further involvement of the then monitoring officer in handling the complaint.

“And yet, when you look at the timeline the then monitoring officer, the conflicted monitoring officer, I’ll describe her as, goes on to appear in this timeline five further times.

“And on one occasion actually receives a copy of the draft investigator’s report prior to all of the other parties and is invited to make a comment. Which she then did two weeks later, returning that investigator’s report with corrections.

“So you have an interested party returning a copy of the draft investigator’s report with corrections. It’s inappropriate behaviour.

“The then monitoring officer was the individual who made the decision to refer this complaint to an external investigator rather than channel it through the counter fraud unit which I suspect is a major reason why the total costs of this complaint have reached £62,565.

“I suspect the sum total would have been less if it had been funnelled through the counter fraud unit.”

The council’s chief executive, Nigel Brinn, said the decision to bring in an external investigator was made by the monitoring officer in consultation with the authority’s “Independent Person”

He added: “Before we go in the wrong direction, we reviewed all of this with the barrister’s support to make sure everything was above board and in hand before we brought it to the standards panel.

“We did do that legal check beforehand, so I think it’s more the perception of potential conflict of interest of further involvement, having identified a conflict of interest rather than any activity which was inappropriate.

“I just want to try and be as clear as I can on that front.”

Cllr Julia Gooch, (Independent Progressives, Newent and Taynton,) asked if a cost limit was set.

Chief finance officer Andrew Knott said: “I have to ensure that the monitoring officer has the resources in order to do a fair process.

“At the time, her view was that the fair process was to have an external investigator.”