Only days before the State Government's public inquiry begins into Shellharbour City Council, questions are being asked about the council's expensive and secretive approach to investigating allegations of councillor misconduct.
The scale and confidentiality of the council's code of conduct committee has surprised even the head of the Department of Local Government.
Shellharbour's conduct committee has three external appointees, including a QC.
There's such a backlog of complaints, the committee is processing them in lots of eight, general manager Brian Weir revealed.
"I'm lost for words," was department director-general Garry Payne's response when told.
"That's unusual. I have never heard of a code of conduct committee processing anything in lots of eight."
Other unusual aspects of Shellharbour's in-house disciplinary committee were that it was confidential and expensive, Mr Payne said.
He said that to the best of his knowledge, there was no government requirement for the committee's business to be kept secret, or for it to have confidential sittings.
All NSW councils are required to have a code of conduct committee, and the Government is in the midst of overhauling the system.
"We envisaged these would be low-key and reasonably prompt," Mr Payne said.
"But that's not the way some of these have gone."
Other councils often included a lawyer, but he had not heard of a QC being attached to a conduct committee.
"There's nothing wrong, but it's top-end heavy," he said.
A bill for nearly $150,000 was included in Shellharbour's quarterly budget review this week, under the heading "Conduct Committee - Legal Expenses $147,000".
Mr Weir said it was not yet possible to give even a ballpark figure of how often councillors had been referred to the committee.
All allegations remained secret, and the who and why would only be revealed next month.
"The councillors don't even know. There will be a report when the hearings are finished," he said.
"They've started wrapping them up.
"They're doing it in batches of eight."
To separate the mayor and the general manager from possible conflicts of interest, the external members have formed a subcommittee to decide which allegations to refer to the committee.
This was previously Mr Weir's job.
The subcommittee had met and considered all complaints, of which half were dismissed and half referred to the full committee for two hearings earlier this month.
The councillors are taken to the committee, which recommends to the council any necessary punishment.
Some misconduct allegations involved multiple councillors. Asked where all these allegations came from, Mr Weir stressed they were from "all quarters", internal and external.
The Mercury understands one recent allegation brought to the committee was from a council officer about an independent councillor.
The council disbanded the conduct committee last year while it was in the midst of legal action against two independent councillors accused of leaking information to a community website.
Mr Weir said he had not wanted to "muddy the waters" during the court case but when the legal battle was adjourned late last year, the committee was reinstated to deal with the mounting allegations.
Opponents to the court case say the council should have just taken the councillors to its conduct committee and saved the community up to $1.5 million.
Local Government Minister Paul Lynch announced a public inquiry into the council last month. He said the decision followed community concerns about councillors' conduct and the council's performance.
The inquiry starts on Monday in Albion Park, and winds up on June 12.
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