Councillors have voiced their disappointment over the need for a £19,000 external investigation into complaints made about members by the local authority’s chief executive.

Southampton City Council’s interim chief executive Andrew Travers submitted formal member conduct complaints against Cllr Rob Harwood and another councillor, who has not been named.

The senior officer’s grievances related to events during a private section of a full council meeting on September 18, 2024, where a report on appointing Mr Travers as the returning officer was discussed, and a comment on LinkedIn by Cllr Harwood in which he called the chief executive a “buffoon”.

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A report to the governance committee meeting on Monday, April 16, said the complaint in relation to matters at the meeting was not upheld, but the social media post breached the code of conduct in terms of treating others with respect and a councillor not bringing themselves or the council into disrepute.

Councillors questioned the cost of the external investigation, which was £18,964.31, on top of the 55 hours of internal officer time needed to initially consider both complaints.

Deputy monitor officer Sarita Riley said it was deemed appropriate to put the matters out for external investigation to ensure there was a public perception of propriety and independence in the investigation.

She said this also ensured both the chief executive and subject councillors had an “absolutely fair and transparent process”.

The external investigation outcome of an apology from Conservative member Cllr Harwood and the LinkedIn comment being removed had been put forward as an informal resolution by Ms Riley within the first week of the complaint being received, the committee was told.

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Liberal Democrat committee member Cllr Thomas Gravatt said: “It is difficult to look at the number like £19,000 as a cost for external investigation without raising both eyebrows perhaps.

“It’s very expensive. Has it always been expensive and how many times a year would we be using these external investigators?”

Ms Riley said such investigations were rare, with 98 per cent of all complaints dealt with internally by council officers.

The committee heard this was the first to go externally since 2017.

The two elements of the complaint could not be separated, the deputy monitoring officer said.

Cllr Gravatt said he did not want to belittle the nature of the upheld complaint but it felt like a lot work for “what amounts to name calling”.

Labour governance committee member Cllr Mike Denness said: “I appreciate the importance of scrutiny and the importance of the council being able to investigate itself and its members and the requirement for this to be done outside when its required.

“It’s hugely important that the council is transparent enough to look at its own members when it needs to.

“But we are also dealing and using and working with taxpayers’ money and I’m surprised or disappointed that it took an investigation that cost nearly £20,000 to essentially get to a point where in the end both parties just agreed the course of action between themselves anyway.”

Ms Riley said around 95 per cent of the six-month external investigation was for the complaint relating to the full council meeting, which was “on a knife edge until he very end” before not being upheld.

She added: “There was a lot of people interviewed a lot of case law that had to be reviewed, a lot of meetings that had to be reviewed and a lot of context around that.

“The investigation process was thorough.”

The senior officer said in her view there had been a “substantial breakdown” in dialogue between the parties involved, which took the investigation process and fleshing out of the issues to get people back around the table.

She said there had been a lot of lessons learned from the process.

“This was a very unusual set of circumstances,” Ms Riley said.

“It’s very rare to have a complainant of the level of seniority in this particular case who felt that their only option was to make a formal complaint.

“Normally that would be resolved in a different way.”

Cllr Harwood, who represents Harefield ward, is a member of the governance committee but did not attend the meeting. Mr Travers was also not present.

In a statement to the Local Democracy Reporting Service days before the meeting, Cllr Harwood said: “The matter has now been resolved informally.

“The report to the governance committee is for noting only.

“It will not be discussed at the committee in any detail. The matter is now considered resolved.”