This Sydney council spent $300K fielding complaints. Now it has a plan to deal with them

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A Sydney council should reinstate an internal watchdog to handle complaints against councillors and staff, after it spent $311,000 investigating nearly 150 grievances in one year, an inquiry heard.

Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun told an Office of Local Government inquiry into the council there had been an estimated “1000 per cent” surge in code of conduct complaints in the past 12 months.

Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun is among the final witnesses to provide evidence at the long-running inquiry.

The inquiry has been running for more than 45 days and was triggered by an interim report detailing allegations of widespread dysfunction and maladministration at the south-western Sydney council.

Counsel assisting the commission, Trish McDonald, SC, on Monday said the inquiry had explored whether the council should reinstate an internal ombudsman to cut spending on external investigators, who had been tasked with dealing with a wave of complaints in the past 12 months.

The inquiry has been told the council had spent an estimated $311,897 dealing with 148 code of conduct complaints relating to councillors or staff in the 2024-25 financial year.

Of those, 127 were referred to an external reviewer, and 101 complaints progressed to a full investigation. Three were referred by the council’s chief executive or the mayor to the Office of Local Government. The council spent $102,909 on preliminary assessments for the complaints.

Mannoun said reinstating the abolished internal ombudsman role would “potentially” cut those costs.

“There was a trend [at the council] in regards to code of conduct complaints over a 10-year period, however; in the last 12 months there has been a significant spike of, dare I say, 1000 per cent extra.

“But do you resource yourself to deal with the normal quantity, or do you resource yourself to deal with the spike? I think there’s a lot more to be interrogated in the figures with respect to the issue.”

In April, council staff urged the OLG to intervene after a report found staff had received 67 complaints about councillors’ conduct in six months – more than a dozen times the number of complaints in all of 2023-24.

Staff said the complaints – which were made against a backdrop of tensions between Mannoun and his long-time political rival, councillor Peter Ristevski – were getting in the way of council business.

Mannoun said suggested a model whereby several councils could chip in funds to share an internal ombudsman office of multiple staff, rather than a single person employed at an individual council.

“I think having a shared resource among councils is the way to do it.

“When you have someone internally I think it puts a lot of pressure on them.”

The council revoked its policy of having an internal ombudsman to handle complaints in 2024.

Councillors considered a motion in July that supported the council’s chief executive investigating the possibility of reinstating the role; however, the final report was deferred until after the inquiry.

Mannoun’s evidence continues before Commissioner Ross Glover.

The inquiry, which began in July, has examined councillor conduct, and the council’s handling of its finances, and state government grants for infrastructure, property purchases and staff employment – including its revolving door of 10 acting or permanent chief executive officers in eight years.

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