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# County council leader says taxpayers  paying the price for “frivolous” complaints
- URL: https://lichfieldlive.co.uk/county-council-leader-says-taxpayers-paying-the-price-for-frivolous-complaints/
- Published: 2026-05-31T06:08:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-29T14:06:49.000Z
- Description: Tens of thousands of pounds are being spent on dealing with “frivolous” complaints about councillors, according to the leader of Staffordshire County Council.
- Author: Jonathan Sutton, Local Democracy Reporter
- Tags: Politics, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-22 18:11, News

TENS of thousands of pounds are being spent on dealing with “frivolous” complaints about councillors, according to the leader of Staffordshire County Council.

Figures have revealed that 149 complaints have been made up until the 10th February – however, only eight have been upheld.

At a recent Staffordshire County Council meeting, Cllr Alex Farrell asked whether the council leader was concerned about the number of complaints and what was going to be done to tackle the cause behind them.

In total, 134 complaints were made against Reform UK councillors, 11 against Conservative representatives and fouragainst independent members.

In November, two complaints over conduct and social media activity about Reform’s Barry Martin were upheld in a standards panel meeting.

Martin, who described the role of a councillor as “so dull and boring”, has since resigned.

Cllr Farrell said that an external organisation had been brought in to help deal with the number of complaints.

He said:

> “Given the increased volume of complaints this council receives about councillors, could you please give me a breakdown of how much that this costs us extra as a council.””

Leader Cllr Martin Murray said he himself was subject to a complaint over sharing a news article from The Telegraph and that the situation had to stop.

He said:

> “Why they’ve gone up so much is these frivolous complaints that have been put through – it’s politicisation so they can grab this headline right now.  
>  
> “It’s not just complaints that have exponentially increased within councillor on councillor, it’s complaints from all councillors from parish, district and borough councils that have been coming through.  
>  
> “The repeat copy and paste of the exact same one from activists – and I’ve seen them where you have ten copy and paste with the exact same wording.  
>  
> “It’s costing the taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds doing it this way. Hundreds of hours of officers’ time is removed by dealing with these frivolous cases.”