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Complaints made against councillors’ conduct have risen sharply at local authorities that held elections last year, figures obtained by PoliticsHome show.
The largest rise revealed in the data is at Staffordshire County Council, where there has been a 1,300 per cent increase in the number of complaints since Reform UK won control at the 2025 local elections a year ago.
As voters prepare to go to the polls for another set of local elections next week, experts said the data was a reflection of the UK’s increasingly polarised political climate. The findings show that in many local authorities, the dramatic rise in complaints has been driven by objections to councillors’ behaviour on social media.
Lucy Bush, Director of Research and Participation at the think tank, Demos, told PoliticsHome that the numbers are “indicative of today’s deeply polarised political environment, where strong negative emotions are driving engagement, where disagreements are sharper and where tolerance has evaporated”.
Councillors are required to abide by their council’s agreed code of conduct, which must be based on the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s seven principles of public life.
To obtain the information, PoliticsHome asked 23 councils where full elections took place in May 2025 how many complaints had been made against councillors between January and December 2024, and in 2025 since 1 May (the date that the elections took place last year).
The complaints could have been made by a member of the public or someone else at the council, and some may not have been taken forward or may have been withdrawn since first being lodged. Of the 23 councils, 13 responded fully to the request for information. PoliticsHome also requested the figures broken down by party, which some councils provided.
The findings show huge rises at many councils won by Nigel Farage’s Reform a year ago.
As well as the 1,300 per cent rise in Staffordshire, an increase of 10 complaints to 140, there was a 455 per cent increase in Leicestershire, from nine to 50, with 45 of those made against Reform councillors.
In November, Leicestershire Reform councillor Joseph Boam told a council meeting that he was a “complaint expert”, having received about 20 himself at the time. He commented on the rise more widely, saying that he and others had “noticed that the spike started the moment Reform UK councillors were elected” and that the “huge increase is almost entirely complaints from far left councillors for our political views and not for any real breach of the code.”
He asked the director of law and governance during the meeting if she agreed with his observation, to which she simply responded: “No, I wouldn’t agree with that statement.”
In Reform-run Durham County Council, there was a 550 per cent increase in complaints made against councillors, rising from eight across the whole of 2024 to 52 between May and December 2025. Of those 52 complaints, 41 were made against Reform councillors.
In Kent, often described as Reform’s flagship council, complaints against councillors have risen by 480 per cent from 10 to 58. The council said it could not provide a breakdown of the numbers by party as it could make it possible to identify an individual councillor.
There were rises in councils controlled by the Liberal Democrats, too.
In Devon, there has been a 264 per cent increase in complaints. Across the whole of 2024, just 11 complaints against councillors were received, compared with 43 in 2025, with 40 of those just since May 1. The council did not provide a breakdown of the complaints by party.
In Gloucestershire, run by a Liberal Democrat minority administration, nine complaints were received across the whole of 2024, compared to 27 in 2025 (25 of which were received since 1 May). Around half of the complaints received were against Reform councillors.
The data shows that, in some cases, complaints against councillors are triggered by a single event. For example, in Reform-run Warwickshire, 308 of the 315 complaints received in 2024 related to comments made by three councillors at the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting of 25 January 2024.
Rhiannon McQuone, research associate at More in Common, explained that the think tank has identified two groups who are most likely to have written to their councillors.
Setting them to PoliticsHome, she said: “Progressive Activists, a group of highly engaged, progressive voters who care about climate change and social justice, and Dissenting Disruptors, a group who are distrustful of institutions, opposed to multiculturalism, think political correctness is silencing ordinary people, and who crave radical change.”
The government consulted on the councillor complaints process in 2024, proposing to introduce a mandatory code of conduct. The Local Government Association said at the time that “there is frustration and dissatisfaction among both voters and councillors where they perceive different levels of standards being applied in different authorities”.
In January, The House magazine revealed that the home addresses of local councillors would soon be kept secret from the public amid rising concerns over threats.
