Frequently Asked Questions
*This page is currently under construction. Apologies for any inconvenience*
General Questions
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A Complaint is an allegation by any Complainant about the behaviour of a member of the Party. This may include criminal behaviour, although the Standards Office shall advise a Complainant where there are circumstances in which the Complaint shall be referred to the police.
Certain types of Complaints are not covered by this process and will be referred to other Party bodies. These include:
a) Complaints against a person who is not a member of the Party at the time the Complaint is reported to the Party, even if they were members when the behaviour took place;
b) Complaints about data management or breach of data protection rules, including GDPR, which will be referred to the Data Protection team in Party HQ;
c) Complaints that are not about individual members. A few examples are: a. Party bodies or local, regional or state parties (which should be dealt with in accordance with the body’s constitution or standing orders); b. council groups (which should be dealt with under the group’s standing orders); or c. constitutional issues (the complaint should be made to the FAP); d. selection processes (which should be sent to the relevant Party’s candidates’ chair);
d) Complaints about Party employees acting in that capacity, which should be sent to their employer; or
e) Members acting in their capacity as returning officers (which should be dealt with under the relevant election rules).Even if a complaint is a Complaint within these rules, it may be dismissed if the behaviour it relates to could not, on the balance of probabilities, bring the Party into disrepute.
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Our Complaint files are held on a Complaint Management System called Hoowla. The Standards Office send an invite to you when your Complaint is acknowledged (applicable to the Complainant) or if the Complaint Progresses to Panel stage (applicable to the Respondent). When you access Hoowla for the first time, you will be asked to set up a profile and you will create a password to be used when you wish to access the Complaint file.
If you need help with your password or profile, please contact Hoowla directly to have this reset 01792 687 146.
If you have simply misplaced the link to access your Complaint file, please email the Standards Office at standardsofficer@libdems.org.uk and you can be sent the link to access the relevant file.
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All documents on Complaint files are shared on Hoowla. Your Complaint file will always have a "Documents" section and all documents are stored within that area but may be held in folders.
The titles of folders should assist you in finding the document you are looking for more easily as documents should be grouped appropriately. For example, all of the Complainant's submissions woud be in one folder and the Respondent's submissions will be in a separate folder.
If you are having difficulty accessing a specific document or you are receiving an error message when trying to access a document, please share a copy of the error message with the Standards Office (standardsofficer@libdems.org.uk) who can provide guidance on common issues that arise when trying to access a document or arrange to either get support directly from Hoowla.
Please note that Hoowla works best with the Google Chrome browser.
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This depends on the scope of the Complaint and how the Complaint progresses through the system. We aim to process all complaints as swiftly as possible and ideally, within 56 days. There can, on occasion, be the need to extend this time, dependant on the nature and complexity of the case.
Complainant Specific Questions
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When you submit a Complaint, this will be acknowledged and provided with a reference number within five working days (Mon - Fri, excluding bank holidays).
The scope of your Complaint is then reviewed by the Standards Office and a recommendation provided to the Lead Adjudicator on how the Complaint shoud progress. We can recommend one of the following options:
- Dismiss;
- Ask for further information;
- Progress to Panel with suspension;
- Progress to Panel without suspension.
The Lead Adjudicator is then tasked with either confirming or amending the pathway for your Complaint. It is at the point the LEad Adjudicator makes their decision that the Respondent is notified of the Complaint. This can sometimes take several weeks and may be the reason why the Respondent is acting unaware of the existence of your Complaint.
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The Standards Office is run by professional staff who must remain independant of the subject matter of any Complaint. This is for a number of reasons but ultimately, as the Standards Office are also responsible for administrating appeals of decisions, it would not be reasonable or just for the Standards Office personnel to make decisions on Complaints as well as administrate any appeal of those decisions.
The Federal Complaint Process relies on a pool of volunteers who dedicate their time, knowledge and skills to support their fellow members who find themselves engaged with the Complaints System. This set up was established in 2019 after being successfully voted for during Conference. Any and all changes to the Complaints Process must be approved by our members and changes will be voted for at Conferences (where changes to the process are proposed).
The direct oversight body for the Standards Office is the Disciplinary Sub Group of the Federal Board, if you have feedback on the process itself please do not hesitate to email dsg@libdems.org.uk (this is the Disciplinary Sub Group of the Party who lead on improvements to the system are separate to the professional staff who administer it).
They will be able to consider any feedback as part of our commitment to continuous improvement should you wish to do so. Please note that the DSG cannot directly become involved in active complaints.
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If the Complaint is upheld, the Adjudication Team have a variety of sanctions available to them based on the nature and scope of the Complaint. The sanctions range from a warning, to training, ordering the Respondent to apologise or even a suspension and/or ban from roles within the Party. The Adjudication Team also have the power to revoke membership in the most serious of cases.
Respondent Specific Questions
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It is important that you still respond to the alleagtions even if you believe the Complaint was politically motivated.
Our volunteers are expected to be free from conflicts of interest in any Complaint they are appointed to consider and accordingly, they will have no preexisting context of the circumstances that led to the Complaint being submitted to the Standards Office. It is recommended that you include any allegation that the Complaint is politically motivated and your rationale for believing this to be the case within your own submission.
If you refuse to provide a response on the basis there is no case to answer and/or you refuse to engage with the adjuducators appointed to a Panel considering the Complaint, our volunteers will be expected to make a decision based on the information available to them. If this results in a sanction against you, you may still be able to appeal but this will only be on a limited basis.
Please note this also applies to Complaints you believe to be vexatious or frivilous.
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Best practice is for Complaints to be dealt with as swiftly as possible. The ideal timeline of a full Complaints process, from initial filing of the online complaints form to the decision from a Panel, should be around 6 weeks (assuming enough evidence is submitted alongside the original Complaint, and the parties all meet the deadlines for their responses). Any appeal would be in addition to this.
To assist with the swift resolution of a Complaint, parties to a Complaint are expected to comply with timelines set for them in this complaints process. An extension to the timeline will be allowed only in exceptional circumstances, such as where witnesses who could provide evidence which might sway the outcome of the Complaint are unavailable for a Panel hearing.
Examples of what may constitute exceptional circumstances include death of a close friend or family member, serious illness, pre-existing commitments the cancellation of which would incur significant costs (e.g. a wedding, holiday or surgery), severe emotional or physical distress, and/or reputational damage.
Applications for an extension in the timeline must be sent to the Standards Office in writing and shall then be considered by the relevant Panel or Appeals Panel (as applicable), whose decision shall be final.
Friends, Family and Colleague Questions
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The Standards Office must "accept" a Complaint agianst anyone who is a current member of the Party as long as it meets the definition of a Complaint. Accepting a Complaint does not reflect the opinion of any Standards Office personnel of the allegations raised as it is their job to remain independant of subject matter.
If you would like to submit a character witness statement on behalf of your relative/friend/colleague, please provide this to them to be submitted alongside their response to the allegations raised in the Complaint. The Standards Office cannot communicate updates with anyone outside of the Complaint and so all comments should be submitted via your relative/friend/colleague as soon as possible.
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In politics, it is not unusual for Complaints to be submitted against individuals who may have political rivals. The Standards Office considers this possibility when logging each and every Complaint. However, the Standards Office personnel does not have the autonomy to dismiss a Complaint on this basis.
If you believe the Complaint against your relative/friend/colleague is politically motivated (or frivilous or vexatious), please encourage them to include that detail in their submission. It is important that they respond to the allegations as our adjudicators must make a decision based on the information available to them. One of the toughest consequences of not providing a response is in the situation where a panel of adjudicators uphold the Complaint and impose a sanction. If this happens and your relative/friend/colleague decided not to engage with the Complaints Process, they may only be able to appeal the decision on a limited basis.