RYEDALE District Council is “progressing” its response to accusations of bullying at the authority and the matter will be revisited in early 2019.

At a meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee on Thursday night, committee members looked at the authority’s annual governance statement; this document identifies six issues “that need to be addressed to ensure continuous improvement in the governance framework”.

The results of the 2017 staff survey which indicated the bullying of employees at the council was one of the six issues addressed.

The overview and scrutiny committee was tasked with producing a report into bullying at the authority in July 2017 - and was given a budget of £10,000 to do so - but as yet the report is unpublished.

The governance statement said: “The chief executive is progressing with staffing-related matters arising from the investigation into bullying and Barry Khan, assistant chief executive, has been appointed as a deputy monitoring officer to deal with any member-related issues arising from the investigation.”

Members praised the broadening of the statement’s scope from a finance document to one of wider issues.